


eudaimonia

by iihappydaysii



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Domestic, Explicit Sexual Content, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Jamie and John are dads together, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Pining, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, past jamie/claire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iihappydaysii/pseuds/iihappydaysii
Summary: To protect baby William, Jamie and Lord John run away with the child to raise him—in the year 2020. The more time they spend together in this new and unusual world, the harder it is for both of them to ignore their growing and changing feelings for one another.
Relationships: Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Comments: 189
Kudos: 382





	1. Chapter 1

Lord John Grey’s heart had gotten him into trouble more than once or twice in his life. It was, as both his mother and his brother, Hal, oft reminded him, his greatest weakness. Never had that notion been so self-evident as it were tonight with John on the run, having absconded with a Scottish prisoner and—what was legally speaking—the son of an Earl.

Despite it occurring in hushed tones under a shroud of darkness, it had all happened so fast. The scene had unfolded before him like the smoke, blood and gunshot of battle.

“I need your help, please,” Jamie had said, with an air of desperation John had yet to hear come from the man. Even at Ardsmuir, even under threat of torture... _There is nothing you can do to me that has not already been done._

John wished he could say it took actually took Jamie’s additional explanation and plea. If he were honest, it had not. As soon as Jamie Fraser was stood on his doorstep, looking so much like he needed John, he was finished. He’d have cut the world down and laid it at the Scot’s feet had he’d asked for it. 

Instead, Jamie had asked for this. Help hiding his son. _His_ son, Jamie’s, not the Earl’s. Neither the family nor the Earl wanted the bastard son of a Jacobite. With the boy’s mother dead and now the Earl, there was nothing to stop the Lord and Lady. Jamie had overheard them whispering of a plan to drown the child and be done with it. 

So, now, Jamie had once again found himself at odds with the law and with the crown. He’d be hunted not only for the child he’d taken, but for the Earl he’d murdered. Jamie must have grown accustomed to being a fugitive with all the experience he’d had in the field. Yet, this was all new to Lord John Grey. 

“The bairn won’t stop crying.”  Jamie stepped over a moss-grown boulder, bringing John from his thoughts back to their current predicament .

“I believe that’s what they do,” John replied, through heavy breaths. They’d been walking for miles now, in God knows what direction.

“He’s hungry. He’s never fed.” 

John looked at Jamie, who was looking back at him, like maybe he had answers. He hadn’t. Well, at least, he hadn’t any grand plan to rescue them all from this disaster.

“We should a least give the baby water,” John said. “I think I heard a stream nearby.” Adults, at least, could last longer without food than water. A little water seemed better than nothing, though far from ideal. 

With the baby still wailing, they slid down a muddy hill in their boots and stumbled forward toward a blue brook streaming its way over dull rocks washed in moonlight. 

“How can we…?” Jamie voiced.

John dug his teeth into his bottom lip as he thought. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him, but he knelt down by the brook and dipped his finger into the cool water. “Bring the baby here, Jamie. Please.”

A few moments later, Jamie knelt down beside John. Now the moonlight was cascading over his reddish mane. In another time and place, it would’ve been serene, seeing Jamie looking like that, natural, as if he’d grown out of the ground like a tree root.

Unsure if it was even a good idea, John pressed a wet finger to the babe’s small lips. It took a moment, but then he started to suckle. Both he and Jamie remained silent, watching, as the boy went on. When the babe whimpered and pulled away, John returned his finger to the water and repeated the process. 

“The water’s an improvement, but he will need to eat soon.”

“Aye. There may be a farm somewhere along the way. We could take some milk from one of the cows or goats.”

John stood from where he’d been crouched by the river. Every muscle in his body ached. He could barely remember ever being this tired, though he knew it always felt like that when you’d reached this point of exhaustion. “We keep walking then, until we find something.”

Jamie nodded, but then frowned. “It won’t sustain him for long. Back in Scotland, I’ve seen what happens to wee bairns when their mothers didn’t produce milk and there was no woman to take her place. Most didn’t last long on sheep’s milk.”

John wished there were words of comfort to give this man, who’d stirred up the parts of his heart he’d long believed dead. This man who’d lost too much, who did not deserve to lose anything else. John wanted to reach out and offer him the comfort of his touch, but it wouldn’t be a comfort to Jamie. It hurt to know that no matter how deep John’s feelings ran that his arms could not give Jamie even a taste of the peace he so richly deserved.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie. We can go back. Where Lady Dunsany can find him a suitable wet nurse. I know that will mean consequences for us both, but the child—”

“No! I’ll not take him back there where at best he’ll be unwanted and at worst, he’ll end up dead. I can’t. I…” Jamie’s voice trailed off and long pause followed before he spoke again. “Do you trust me?”

“I… yes. Of course.”

“Hold the bairn for me.” 

Jamie carefully laid his child in John arms and the babe squirmed up against John’s chest as if to seek out his warmth. It made a small smile flicker across his face. This child was so impossibly small, with the tiniest fingers he’d ever seen.

Jamie pulled out a knife and stomped over to the nearest tree. Muttering strange words under his breath, Jamie began to carve runes of some kind into the bark of the tree.

“What are you doing?” John whispered, a sudden shiver rolling up his spine. It was unsettling enough out here in the dark woods, and Jamie’s sudden strange behavior only made it worse.

“Quiet,” Jamie demanded harshly, before returning to his whispered language that could’ve been mistaken for Gaelic, but John was somehow certain it wasn’t. At least, not exactly.

He kept on and on, then finally Jamie threw his knife down. “Goddammit. Of course... I was a fool to even try.”

It was unclear what Jamie had been intending to do, but whatever it was, it had not seemed to work.

John asked quietly, “Jamie… what were you—“

“Is the bairn asleep?” His voice was soft like goose-down but sad too. 

John looked down at the bundle in his arms. The baby’s eyes were shut, his bottom lip fluttering from breaths. John nodded.

“Then, we sleep for a few hours and when he wakes, we go in search of a goat.”

“But Jamie—“

“If you want to leave…” There was a bite to his words, but then Jamie let out a breath and the softness in his voice returned, “I shouldn’t have asked for your help. It was unfair of me to put you in this position.”

John shut his eyes and swallowed. Maybe he should take Jamie up on his offer. Leave and try to salvage what little may be left of his reputation—he’d clawed his way tooth and nail back from exile before—but the baby was just sleeping so soundly, tucked into the turn of his elbow.

“You’re right. Let’s rest here,” John said.

Together, they worked to kick up a nest of leaves, dry and soft enough to lay down in. It was cold out, the temperature dropping steadily and the air was lapping up against their skin with a bitter mist. They could set a fire, for the warmth, but they were both wanted men. Those that were looking for them could be drawn in by the smoke.

Jamie laid down in their constructed nest and John stood there, cradling the babe and staring down at him.

“What’re ye waiting for’?” Jamie grumbled. 

Those words broke John of his reverie and he nestled down on the ground beside Jamie. It wasn’t easy, with the baby in his arms, but he managed to lie on his back, with Jamie on his side, looking in his direction. 

Taking in a shaky breath, John laid the baby comfortably against his chest. He looked so small and perfect, this minuscule fragment of Jamie Fraser, so helpless, but with no idea that all he had in the world were two troubled... criminals with only the faintest idea of how keep him alive.

“I can take him, if ye would like,” Jamie said.

“I don’t mind,” John replied. “It could wake him and it might be best not to.”

Jamie nodded, a small, tired smile growing on his face before sweeping away.

As they laid there in the dark with nothing to hear but the bugs and their soft breaths, John just held the babe closer, nestling his face against the top of the bundle, until the world winked out around him.

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads!”

The sound of a woman’s voice roused John from his sleep. It took him a bleary moment to realize again where he was. _In the woods. With Jamie and his baby. On the run._

_“_ Jamie.” It was the woman’s voice again, which he only now noticed was flat, a bit harsh. An accent unlike any he’d heard. And this woman was calling Jamie by his real name, not the false identity he’d been using at Helwater. “I swear to God.”

“What? What!” Jamie popped up beside John. “Zoe. You’re here” Jamie stood up. “I dinna think the summoning had worked.”

Summoning? That’s what Jamie had been doing last night. John sat up now too, eyes slowly clearing from sleep. The baby breathed warmly against his neck.

“Jesus Christ, Jamie. Did you kidnap a British officer?” 

_Kidnap?_

“No. No, of course not.”

“What ‘of course not’?!” Zoe— _odd name_ —replied. “That sounds exactly like something you would do.”

“Aye, but I dinna. He is here of his own free will.”

Zoe appraised John, like she was taking him in and asking him a question all at the same time. And it was only in this moment that John realized how she was dressed. Tight, blue trousers constructed of an unknown material and an odd, soft-looking black shirt with the words “Star Wars” somehow printed across them. John had never seen anything remotely like it in his life.

John nodded, though, because he was—somehow—here of his own free will.

“Is that a—?” Zoe’s eyes grew wide. “Holy shit. Where the hell did you get a baby?”

“He’s mine,” Jamie replied. “It’s a long story though, and we don’t have time. He hasn’t eaten.”

“Where’s his mom?”

Jamie looked down. “She’s dead. Her husband and parents, they don’t want the child. Her husband tried to kill the baby, so I… stopped him.”

“Stopped him?”

“He’s dead too.”

Zoe linked her fingers together and placed her hands atop her head as she let out a breath. “Christ, Fraser. You really do manage to fuck up your whole life a god-awful lot, you know that?”

It was not only this woman’s accent and her dress that left John confused. It was the way she spoke English, recognizable but with a host of incomprehensible words and phrases thrown in. 

“Can ye help us?” Jamie asked.

Zoe dropped her hands. “How long ago was the baby born?”

“Twenty-four hours at least,” John finally spoke up.

Zoe nodded. “Shit. The poor thing.” She walked up to John and knelt down in front of him, looking down at the baby’s face. He’d just opened his bright blue eyes. “No need to worry now, sport. Aunt Zoe’s here to clean up of your daddy’s mess. She’s gotten very good at it.” She stood back up and pulled a bundle of twine out of her pocket.

“Stand up,” she ordered, then pointed at John. “Is this one coming? What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lord John Grey,” he replied.

“A Lord, Jamie? For Christsake.”

“Coming where?” John replied. 

Jamie spoke up, “Zoe, you cannot honestly mean to—”

“I do,” she interrupted. “You two geniuses are on the run. Probably good candidates for a hanging, at least you Jamie. I’m not sure how complicit that extra from the off-broadway cast of _Hamilton_ is in all your bullshit, but—”

“I don’t entirely ken your meaning,” Jamie said. “But John attacked and wounded several of the men trying to apprehend me.”

“I can’t go back,” John said, hit by a sudden sinking feeling.

“Well, alright then, buckle-up buttercup.” With that, Zoe took the string and tied it around her wrist with a knot, then she attached the string to Jamie’s wrist, placing a blue gemstone in his hand. Then, she ran the twine behind his back before tying it to the other. She took John’s wrist, placed a gemstone in his hand, and did the same with the twine, connecting Jamie to John.

“What’s the meaning of this?” John asked, his heart pounding unexpectedly. 

Zoe ignored him, but Jamie replied, “You can stay here. You may be able to explain yourself.”

_Explain that I attacked my fellow Englishmen for the sake of a Scottish prisoner and his illegitimate child?_ It wouldn’t do.

With a sigh, John adjusted the boy to be in his other hand, then held his untied wrist out to Zoe. She tied the twine on, then tucked another gemstone into the baby’s wrappings. She finished connecting the twine onto her own wrist, completing a circle. 

Zoe looked at John. “Hold the baby tight, alright?”

He nodded and swallowed, looking to Jamie for reassurance. He felt he should’ve passed the child onto his father, but for some reason he didn’t want to let go. Jamie nodded back at him.

Zoe’s voice shifted, leaving English behind for the same strange dialect Jamie had been muttering last night, though the words were spoken with a strong assurance. It was clear whatever this language was she was fluent in it, where Jamie had simply memorized the tones. 

A twig lifted from the earth untouched and begin to scratch runes into the circle of dirt between them. He was speechless. He was not the type to believe in magic, but how could he ignore the witness of his own eyes. As the scene carried on before him, the runes began to light as embers and the world started to fade like soot being washed off his hands. All he could do was cling tight to Jamie’s child and pray his loss of sense wouldn’t put the baby in jeopardy.

And, then, as if he’d never been in those cold woods at all, John was warm all over and he, and Zoe, and the child and Jamie—thank God— stood in a place unlike any he’d ever seen before. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Where are we?” John asked, looking at Jamie for answers.

Jamie looked to Zoe who replied, “The year 2020.”

John blinked. “Wh-what did you just say?”

“We’re about two-hundred and fifty years into the future,” she clarified, though that did not reassure John in the least.

“Jamie, what is she on about?”

“She’s telling the truth.”

John let out a shaky breath. He was feeling quite dizzy. “I need to sit down.”

Zoe shrugged and flicked her wrist. The twine fell off, and John stumbled back into a big, white linen chair, still clutching Jamie’s baby, who was stirring his arms.

Jamie walked over and reached out for the boy. “I can take him,” he said, but John couldn’t seem to move his muscles to hand the baby over. “John, please.” He fleetingly touched John’s wrist over his sleeve and that was enough to jar him out of his thoughts, to loosen his bewildered grip on the child so his father could take him.

“W-why are we here?” John managed. _How?_ How was what he truly wanted to ask.

“The British army can’t find you here, for one. For two,” Zoe replied. “I can feed your baby here. I’ll need to go to the store. Babies need lots of things. Formula, bottles, diapers, a crib, a car seat, the like.”

John just blinked. He hadn’t known babies to need much of anything besides their mother’s milk, though in fairness he knew little about babies.

Zoe grabbed some keys from a small black table by her door, then sniffed, frowning at them. “You both stink by the way. Take a shower while I’m gone, would ya?” She pointed down a hallway. “Third door on the left, behind the curtain, just turn the silver handle till the water gets warm. It’s easy enough, you’ll figure it out. Towels are under the sink. I’ll be back in a few. Make yourselves at home.” With that, Zoe disappeared out the door.

“Did you make sense of any of that?” John asked Jamie.

“Aye, some,” he said, smiling down at his baby. Sure, he had no idea what the large black mirror behind Jamie was, but the sight still made John warm.

This place, Zoe’s home, he assumed, was as inexplicable as the woman it belonged to. A beige rug covered the floor from wall-to-wall, not a hint of wood beneath it. There were oddly shaped vases, adorned with some version of a hat and above him on the ceiling was a strange glass dome.

Little sniffs and gasps escaped the baby’s lips and Jamie was bouncing the boy softly as he paced past that black mirror to the far wall near the door. There were little white levers on the wall and Jamie curiously flicked one. The glass dome on the ceiling illuminated.

John yelped at the sight, then immediately warmed with embarrassment.

“What is it?” Jamie asked.

“Sorry, I”— John pointed at the light on the ceiling. “Is this whole place magic?” He felt foolish talking about magic, but it was even more foolish to pretend this was not happening.

Jamie turned his head up toward the light. “I dinna think that is magic, John. Claire… she told me about this.”

“Claire? Your wife? How would she have…”

“I forgot you wouldn’t know. Claire, she’s like Zoe, from a different time.”

“From… 2020?” That number just sounded impossible.

Jamie shook his head. “1948, but they had this. She called it electricity. It’s not magic. It’s science. They ken how to fly, too. Large, steel machines in the sky. Claire said they were airplanes.”

It was hard for John to accept all that he was being told, but he knew there was truth in it. Knew, in a way, that Jamie had been waiting to open up about this. What a strange and wondrous thing to carry alone for all these years.

“Have you been to the future before?”

“No. I’ve only known travelers, like Claire and Zoe. There was another too. A woman named Geillis, but she was killed in a witch trial.”

“Your wife was a witch then too?” John asked.

“No, of the three of them, Zoe, is the only true witch, I believe. Though if she were here she’d tell you to stop thinking what you’re thinking and that the devil’s not involved at all.”

Until today, John wasn’t sure he believed in much of anything. The devil, God, any of it. Certainly not spirits, demons or magic, Now, he knew he at least had to believe in part of it, some kind of magic that would make it possible for him to be here.

“It’s remarkable,” John finally said.

“Zoe mentioned a shower did she not?”

“I believe so. Do you know what that is, within this context?”

“Aye. I reckon I do. It was one of the things Claire said she missed most. She’d mention it whenever the bathwater was too cold.” Jamie smiled. It was obvious he was considering the memory even more deeply than he was speaking of it. “She said third door on the left?”

“I believe so.”

Jamie began to walk through the room towards the corridor where Zoe had pointed. “If you can walk and this is what I think it is, you’ll want to see it.”

John hesitated, but then stood from the chair. Once again, Jamie was inviting him along and, God help him, he would just have to follow.

Together, they stepped into a darkened corridor where John noticed the small, white levers on the wall. He pushed them up and another one of those glass domes illuminated filling the narrow way with light. It was a short walk to the third door on the right and, with his free hand, Jamie pushed open the door.

The room was dark and Jamie sought out another lever on the wall. Moments later, the small room filled with light. There was a basin beneath a mirror and metal pipes. Across the smooth stone floor, there was a bright, white pot of some kind attached to the floor and then, as promised, the curtain Zoe had mentioned. John stepped behind Jamie and pulled back the curtain.

Similar to what he’d seen over the basin, there was a steel pipe and a silver handle. John nervously glanced over at Jamie, then reached his hand forward to grasp the cold metal handle. He pulled it back and, with a hiss, water shot out from above him, hitting him in the face. He jolted back, and Jamie snickered. John sent him a look over his shoulder.

“Sorry, but Zoe did warn ye it would do that.”

John remembered what else she said. That if he pulled on the handle, the water would warm, so he tried it. Moments later, the downpour turned from icy cold to the most pleasing warmth.

“Jamie, you have to feel this.”

With the baby cradled in one of his large arms, Jamie stepped forward and put his hand besides John’s in the spray.

Jamie spat out a curse, then a grin grew on his face and he just started to laugh. The sound was as rich and warm as butter, and John could not help but to laugh as well as the impossibly warm water splashed across their hands and spilled down their arms.

“Ye should try it first,” Jamie said. “Seeing as all of this is mostly my fault.”

“Mostly?”

“Aye. Ye could have turned me away.”

_No. No, James Fraser, I could not have._

That warm shower was one of the most glorious experiences of John’s life. His muscles were sore and aching and the pressure from the spray mixed with the heat on his bare skin felt marvelous.

He grabbed a bar of soap, that smelled wonderful, like a meadow, and unlike any soap he’d used before. John lathered it on his hands before smoothing it over his skin to push away the dirt. There was something terrifying and yet cathartic about watching two-hundred year old blood and dirt stream away in the water and disappear down the drain.

John felt like he could stay in there forever, but he also wanted to give Jamie a chance at this miracle—and a moment away from the wailing babe—so he turned the handle back to its starting position, then stepped out of the tub. Dripping, he opened the cabinet as Zoe had advised and grabbed a towel. They were fluffier and softer than any he’d used before, the fabric dyed a deep emerald green. It was a wonder that the people of this time would go through the trouble and expense of dyeing something as simple as a towel for drying.

With how clean he felt, it was a shame to have to tug on his dirty clothes, but he decided to just put on what was least soiled and would still protect his modesty. His trousers and white undershirt.

John stepped back into the hallway only to be greeted with the baby’s loud cries, no longer muffled by the shut door.

“Zoe better return soon. I’m not sure how much longer he can go without food.”

John walked up to Jamie and replied softly, “I’ll keep an eye on the baby,, while you use the shower.”

“I’m worried.”

“I’m worried too, but Zoe will return and, in the meantime, I’m sure you can use a break from all the screaming.”

“Aye, aye I could.” Jamie sighed. “You’ll tell me if anything happens with him.”

“Of course.”

Jamie passed the baby over to John and it felt comforting, strangely, to have the child so close again, even if he was crying. It was obvious he was a fighter, like his father.

As Jamie walked away, John bounced the child in his arms, trying to sooth it, though he knew he wasn’t likely to be quiet. The poor thing had been starved of food since birth. He was likely weak, his belly aching. His heart broke for the babe, so small, and pale and precious.

It wasn’t long after John heard the shut of the door and the rush of the water in the shower, that Zoe came in through the front door laden with translucent bags.

“Well, then Johnny, follow me,” she said, directing him with a turn of her head the opposite way of the bathroom.

John hesitated, but followed her around the corner into what had to be the kitchen as there was a rolling pin, a pie plate and bowl of apples on the counter. He made his assumption on that alone for the room was unlike any kitchen or scullery he’d seen before. The whole thing was ringed by a counter, like a bar at a tavern, though the tops appeared to be constructed with marble. Drawers sat above and below. There was also a basin, like the one in the bathroom but larger, beneath a window overlooking a small green lawn. But the strangest of all were the three enormous devices John had never seen before—a steel box just to the right of the basin, beneath the counter. Another steel box as tall as him and more than as wide as him was nestled against the wall and another with four spiraling coils on top.

John must’ve looked as dumbfounded as he felt because Zoe said, “You’re looking pretty pale there, man. You alright?”

“What is all this?”

Zoe looked around. “You’ll learn as you go, okay? Right now. We need to feed your kiddo.” She dug around in the sacks, which rustled as she touched them, then she pulled out a white container of a material he’d never seen before, and some small bottles that looked something like glass but not quite. “Come closer. I don’t bite.”

It seemed like an odd reassurance, but John _was_ feeling overwhelmed, unsure of what she wanted from him, “Why?” he asked, a bit stupidly, which he hated. It wasn’t like him at all.

“Because you need to see how to feed him.”

“I’m not sure I need to… watch that,” he said uncomfortably. He’d seen women nurse in passing before, but none had ever insisted that they show him how it’s done.

Zoe appraised him through squinting eyes. “You’re not going to watch it you’re going to do it.”

“I don’t have... breasts.”

Zoe snorted. “I can see that.”

John wasn’t sure why he was being laughed at. He was feeling exhausted; maybe his mind was just not at its best.“I just assumed that Jamie wanted your help because he knew you could feed the child.” His gaze darted down to the woman’s bosom, which he regretted, then looked back up.

“Do I look like I’m lactating?”

“Well,” John straightened up. “I’m not sure I’d know what that looks like.”

Zoe rolled her eyes and turned back towards the items she’d laid out on the counter. She picked up the white container, which John now noticed had blue lettering across it.

“Formula,” she said.

 _Formula?_ John stepped a bit closer to get a better look. “Like a potion? This is magic?”

“Yeah,” Zoe laughed again. “From the great sorcerer Nestle,” then she turned and looked at John. Something in her face softened and her shoulders dropped. “No, not magic. Just science.” She unscrewed the lid and pulled back a paper covering. “Lots of lives were saved with this invention.” Putting down the container, she grabbed an oddly shaped package with a bottle in it and tore it open. “Fill one of these guys up to this line with water, not from sink. It should be distilled water.”

John’s eyes widened. “Distilled? There are spirits in this.”

“No. God, no. Don’t give a baby booze, Jesus. It’s just clean water.” Zoe pointed at one of the bags, which contained a large jug with a small green cap.

“The water coming from the pipes isn’t clean?”

“It is.” Zoe walked over to the basin and turned the water on. It was still rather incredible to see the water flow so easily. She squeezed some sticky blue liquid not a rag and scrubbed the bottle with it. “We’re just extra careful with a baby.”

When she was done washing the bottle, she dried it off with another cloth, then opened up the jug with the green cap and poured water into the small bottle. “See, just to that line and then a scoop of this.” She scooped white powder from the container and poured it into the bottle. She pressed in something pliable, looking like a clear rubber, into a plastic ring, then screwed it on to the top of the bottle. She placed a cap over what looked like a large, elongated nipple. “Close the top and shake it up.” Zoe handed him the bottle. “Here you are.”

John took the bottle slowly. “You want me to do it?”

“Yes, genius. It won’t kill you. Just put the nipple to his lips.”

With a shaky breath, he looked to Zoe from reassurance and she nodded. Then, he steadied himself—it took an amount of courage he was not expecting—and held the soft rubber nipple against the baby’s lips. After a moment’s hesitation, the baby opened his mouth, just like he’d done for the water last night, and began to suckle.

A smile stretched across John’s face as he felt immensely pleased with himself. “He’s drinking. That’s... well, that’s something,” he said almost reverently. It truly was a sight to see, feeding him a quiet intimacy to share with a child that he never expected to experience, even if he’d been a father.

“We should also probably get him in to see a doctor... a healer, or physician, I think you call them. So he can get his shots and just generally get checked out.”

“Shots?” John asked, still staring down at the babe, entranced.

“Yes, they’re injections with a needle to protect against disease.”

“And that works?”

“It works very well.” Zoe took a step closer, her lips stretching into a small smile as she looked down at the baby. “He sure is a hungry boy. You know, I didn’t think to ask, what’s his name?”

“William,” It was Jamie, from the down the hall. The sound of his voice made John’s heart stutter. “His name is William. After my brother.”

“Well, hello Will,” Zoe said. “It’s a good name. He looks like a Will.”

It was in this moment that John turned away from the baby and to Jamie, who was standing down the hall, shirtless, one of those green towels wrapped around his waist, his shoulders still slightly wet and glistening under the light. He was… remarkable. John felt his mouth go dry, his cheeks warm. God in heaven, he hoped Jamie could not tell.

“Zoe, I dinna mean to trouble you any more,” Jamie said. “But I accidentally soaked my shirt, it’s quite dirty anyway, would you have something to lend?”

She rifled through one of the bags and pulled out some garments. “Yep, grabbed it from the store as passed by. Got some for you too,” she looked at John, “so you can get out of those clothes and into something a bit less smelly.”

“Thank you, Zoe.” Jamie took the clothes from Zoe, then turned to John. “He’s eating well?” he asked softly.

John swallowed, acutely aware of Jamie Fraser’s closeness and the sweet scent of Zoe’s soap in his hair. “Seems to be, yes,” he finally managed, his gaze darting to Jamie then away again.

Standing just a foot away, Jamie pulled that shirt on over his head, bare, tan muscles twitching as they moved. John swallowed hard, trying to wet his dry mouth. Jamie gave John a quick nod, then walked back down the hall with the rest of the clothes in his arms, his arse tight and obvious beneath the towel.

John’s face was fire hot.

Zoe nudged him. “I saw that.”

John’s stomach dropped like a swarm of dead flies. “Saw what?”

Zoe hopped onto the counter and grinned, keeping her voice low. “Eh, you don’t have to play dumb with me. It’s not like that with me and Jamie, but I’m not blind. He’s hot as hell.”

 _Hot as hell_ wasn’t a term John was familiar with and yet he found it described Jamie exquisitely. Still, he didn’t know the purpose behind this witch friend of Jamie’s bringing up his tastes. It made him nervous.“He knows of my proclivities, so if you’re planning on using this against me-“

“Dude, no. I didn’t mean... I’ve seen what it was like back then for men who were attracted to men, but it’s better now. Most people are cool with it.” She put a hand on his shoulder then pulled it away. “I don’t mean to pry into your business or anything, just I know what it’s like to have to hide who you are, how tiring it is, and I wanted you to know, you can lay that burden down here, if you want.”


	3. Chapter 3

The day passed slowly, like sap rolling down the trunk of a tree. Jamie dressed in the strange clothes Zoe gave him. A pair of “boxer-briefs” she said, then “jeans-and-a-t-shirt”. Zoe had said that phrase like that, as if it was all one thing, though he imagined it was not. Jamie asked her where the rest of it was. She laughed and said, “Stop worrying about your modesty, Princess. This is how everyone dresses.”She’d purchased Grey something similar, though the “jeans” were black and the t-shirt grey instead of white. It was simple, minimal, worlds away from the extravagance of the red coat dress he usually wore. Somehow the image evoked good garden soil, the kind that reaped autumn crops. Jamie pushed the thought away furiously.

Ever since Jamie had left Helwater the previous night, he’d been acting on instinct—the way one does in battle. It had been instinct that led Jamie to Grey’s quarters, redcoats not far behind. Maybe a touch of insanity was to blame, as he did not know what he expected Grey to do. But Jamie had found himself pounding like a madman on Grey’s door, in the middle of the night, before he even understood that he was doing it at all.

Jamie explained the situation to the major as quickly and thoroughly as possible, feeling more and more foolish as the story went on. Grey said nothing, which only increased the withering feeling between his ribs. When the redcoats first arrived to apprehend him, Grey had let them into his room. Jamie thought Grey had meant to turn him over, leaving Jamie sorting through ways to kill him and the other soldiers, with a baby in his arms, when one of the soldiers rushed towards Jamie and found himself with Lord John Grey’s pistol to his head. 

Had John made that decision as he had made the one to go to him for help? With instinct and a touch of insanity?

“I ordered a pizza,” Zoe said, drawing Jamie from his thoughts. “It’ll be here in thirty minutes or less,” she put the telephone—Claire had explained that one to him— away. “We could watch something.”

_Watch?_ Jamie thought. _Watch what?_ He said nothing though. Second by second, he gained a greater appreciation for what Claire must’ve endured when she first landed in the past. And, unlike him, she was entirely alone.

Jamie followed Zoe out of her frankly wondrous kitchen into the room with the front door, the one they’d first arrived in.

Grey was there by the window, hands around a glass of water, looking outside. “What are those? The machines that keep passing by so quickly?”

“Cars,” Zoe replied. “They’re how we get around here for the most part, instead of horses and carriages.”

With a blink, Grey’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. “How do they work?”

“Hell if I know. I just drive ‘em and don’t ask questions. I could google it.”

“Google?”

Zoe shook her head. “No, never mind. Google is too much for today. We should start with television.” She grabbed a long black rectangle from one of the small tables and pointed it at the flat black _something_ against the wall.

The black transformed to a vibrant array of colors, organized into moving images that emitted sound.

“Dear God in heaven,” Grey said.

Jamie was speechless, simply staring, brow furrowed at the pictures.

“Pretty wild, huh?”

“How does _this_ work?” Grey asked as he had earlier.

“Ask me again when I think you’re ready for Google.”

Jamie found himself desperately wanting to know what or who Google was and why Zoe presumed they would not be “ready for it”, when she’d assumed, wrongly Jamie might add, that they were prepared for this thing called a television.

“Deciding someone’s first television show is far too much responsibility,” Zoe said. 

Pointing that rectangle at the pictures, she kept pressing her thumb down and the images would shift, showing one impossible thing after another. Then, suddenly, she stopped and announced that she had an idea. “Netflix.”

Jamie had no idea what Netflix meant, and he was wondering if he’d ever get used to all the new words and concepts this time would hold. 

“What would you like to see? Forests, seas, caves, deserts?”

Grey looked over at Jamie, which made Jamie realize he’d been looking over at him already. Neither one of them seemed to know how to answer that question. Did Grey feel as small and ignorant as he did? 

“Let’s go with forests,” she eventually said when they did not answer. “That will at least be somewhat familiar.”

The television changed once again, opening up to a vibrant world of deep greens and blues and shocks of violent red. The gentle voice of an unseen man spoke as Jamie felt he were sweeping over the world on the back of an eagle. He stood witness to sight after magnificent sight, each one he’d never even dreamt of seeing.

Again, he was speechless; Grey was not, however. “How do they… how is it possible…” he turned toward Zoe, then answered his own question. “You don’t know.”

It could be magic, Jamie thought, but it seemed this had gone far beyond the realm of magic and had landed among the world of miracles. Would William grow up, as Zoe had done, believing all of this to be so commonplace that he wouldn’t even think to ask how it all worked? Would, could even he himself grow to find this simply usual? No, Jamie found that impossible to fathom.

In silence, they all moved to sit, Grey to a chair by the window and Zoe and Jamie on the sofa. They watched, attention rapt, until a ring sounded throughout the house.

“Pizza’s here.” Zoe jumped up from beside Jamie and went to the door. She opened it and a man in a red shirt was stood on the doorstep. He held a large, flat brown parcel and one of those strange sacks that Zoe had brought home William’s bottles and such in. She thanked the man and took the parcel and the bag, closing the door behind her with her foot. “God, if I’m this hungry, you both must be starving.”

Jamie wouldn’t argue with Zoe. His stomach was empty, but he’d been far hungrier many times in his life and, despite his position, it was almost certain that Grey had felt the same way. Still, the food smelled unusual, but delicious, and when Zoe opened the box, the food was unrecognizable.

She looked over at John, who had just walked in behind them. “Ask me how this is made, I actually know the answer to that.”

He leaned over the top of the box to look down at the “pizza”. “Maybe just explain what it is.”

“Bread, tomato sauce, cheese and meat.”

“Tomatoes are poisonous,” Grey said.

Zoe laughed. “No, they’re acidic. Lead is poisonous and your plates had lead in the them. The acid in the tomatoes makes the lead leach out of the plates.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” Zoe said, pulling one of the pieces from the large circle. She took a bite. “Super delicious and not gonna kill you.” She pulled three plates down from her cabinet and gestured to them. “Have at it, guys. There’s buffalo wings and brownies too.”

“Buffalo don’t have wings,” Jamie said.

“They’re chicken wings. Buffalo is the name of the sauce. It’s named for the town in New York where they were invented.”

“Should I ask about brownies?” Grey said with a small smile.

“Like a dense chocolate cake.”

As they were filling up their plates, Zoe opened up what she’d earlier referred to as a refrigerator and asked, “You guys want something to drink? Uh, looks like I’ve got Sam Adams and some expired almond milk?”

“Who’s Sam Adams?” Grey inquired, looking over at Zoe with his plate balanced in his left hand.

Her eyes darted towards Jamie and she grimaced. “Not sure I should tell _him._ ”

Grey’s brow furrowed.

She pulled two brown bottles out and placed them on the counter. “It’s beer. Named after a revolutionary, fighting for uh the independence of the American colonies from England.” She grabbed a metal instrument out of her drawer and used it to remove the lids on each bottle.

“Like a Jacobite?” Grey said, taking a seat at Zoe’s table.

“Sort of. Except they kick your ass.”

A ruddy flush bloomed across Grey’s cheek and he stiffened. Zoe looked over at Jamie. “Told you I shouldn’t tell him.”

“How?” he asked, blinking.

“The indomitable spirit of the American people. That and intervention from Spain, France and the Netherlands.”

“Claire…” Jamie managed, as he still often struggled to say her name aloud. “She also said something about… it was a strange word… guerrilla tactics.” He sat at the table too, taking an offered bottle of the beer from Zoe.

“There was that too. They learned it from conflicts with the Native Americans.”

Grey hesitated, but he took one of the bottles of beer from Zoe. “This is cold…?”

“One thing at a time,” Zoe replied. 

“What are guerrilla tactics?”

“If he ever goes back to his own time, we’re fucked.” Still standing, Zoe took a bite of her own pizza. “It’s basically small groups of soldiers carrying out ambushes, sabotage, hit-and-run maneuvers. It can be pretty effective when you’re up against a larger, less-mobile traditional army. God, I suddenly feel like a traitor.”

“That’s not unlike what you and the Jacobites did the night we met,” Grey said to Jamie.

“How _did_ you two meet?”

“He tried to kill me,” Jamie replied. 

Zoe gave Grey a look. 

“I did not succeed.” Grey hesitated, but picked up the slice of pizza with his hands as Zoe had done. He took a bite of the pizza and chewed it slowly, brow knitting. “That’s… unusual but quite delicious.”

“It’s all the fat and sodium,” Zoe replied, her mouth full, as she joined them at the table.

Jamie did his best not to judge. He knew Zoe was whip-smart, kind-hearted and an incredibly powerful sorceress, but her lack of manners would sometimes unsettle him. When they’d met in those years after Culloden, when he was Red Jamie and hiding in the woods, she’d saved his life more than once. He respected her even if he never understood the rules she used to govern her life. He would have to meet more people from this time to know if these behaviors were particular to Zoe or if they were widespread. Grey, on the other hand, was almost painfully neat. He carried himself with the rigid posture of an English soldier, his body reaching the floor at controlled yet elegant angles. Jamie had seen him eat before, of course. Each bite he took was always precise, like a reasoned decision. 

Jamie returned his attention to his own meal and ate some himself. The texture of the bread and melted cheese slid over his tongue, the flavor enhanced. Everything in this time seemed to be. Louder, more vibrant, desperate for attention.

They’d only finished a portion of their meal ,and Grey was asking Zoe more questions about the man on their bottles of beer, when a loud cry sounded from down the hall where Jamie had laid William down to sleep.

He stood up from the table and walked towards the sound, pushing open the door to the small bedroom. William was a small-bundled freckle in a sea of egg blue linen. Jamie lifted his son—his _son_ —from the bed and stared down at the bairn’s soft pink face.

With a hush, he bounced William in his arms, smiling down at him. The bairn’s face scrunched up and moments later, the putrid stench of shit filled the room. He hurried back to Grey and Zoe in the kitchen. Jamie held the baby out to Zoe. 

“The bairn has soiled himself.”

Zoe cringed. “Gross. Change him.”

“Change him?”

“Yeah, I bought diapers.”

“What are diapers?” 

With a sigh, Zoe stood up from her chair and walked over to the kitchen counter where the bags from earlier that day still remained. She pulled out a blue box and tore into it. “I’ll tell you how, but you’re doing it.”

It wasn’t that Jamie was particularly disgusted at the thought or that he found himself above it. No, he simply felt inadequate. Men rarely looked after bairns in his time, at least the roles for how they were to look after bairns were more clearly defined. There were the things women were better suited to doing, and the things men were better suited to doing. Though, at the thought, he could almost hear Claire’s judgement. She was far better physician than any man he’d known and that was an occupation supposedly better suited to his sex. 

“Come with me,” Zoe said, gesturing with the diaper towards the main room. “You too, John. You’re going to need to know how to do this too.”

Jamie expected Grey to protest or stay seated, but he wiped his mouth with a napkin, then stood to follow them. When he’d come to Grey for help, he hadn’t expected to reach out to Zoe too, for the three of them to end up here. He certainly hadn’t expected that Lord John Grey would be a willing participant in any of this. Maybe, Jamie figured, he should just stop assuming anything of the man. He had not the talent for it.

Zoe laid a plush blanket on the floor, then knelt down beside it. “Lay Will down here. Gently.”

The reminder was unnecessary, but Jamie understood the instinct to protect this fragile creature, so he said nothing, just did as he was told.

Zoe talked Jamie through the steps, as Grey stood behind them with a studious look on his face. She told him about wiping the bairn clean with the disposable wet wipes and about making sure to cover him in a way so he couldn’t piss all over you while you were changing him. And finally, she talked Jamie through attaching the diaper, as she called it, which was constructed of some kind of thick parchment-like material that stuck to itself.

“Who’s that?” Grey asked.

“Who do you mean?”

“The image on the front there.”

Zoe laughed. “That is the most recognizable image in the world. More recognizable than our Lord Jesus Christ. Mickey Mouse.”

“You cannot be serious,” Grey replied.

Zoe stood from where she was crouched and patted Grey’s shoulder as she passed by him. “Welcome to the 21st century.”

A few moments later, Zoe returned with a grey spotted outfit for the bairn. She helped Jamie slip his arms and legs into it, then taught him about zippers before helping him close it up.

“Such a bonnie bairn,” Jamie said, scooping his son up into his arms. He caught a soft look on Grey’s face, a gentleness in his eyes that had this way of setting him at ease, even when Jamie knew he should remain on guard. Grey had not made any advances on him since that day at Ardsmuir. The trouble was that Jamie did not know if Grey’s behavior came from the threat Jamie had made or from a genuine respect for his person. He guessed Grey could’ve taken him when he was tied up on the way to Helwater and there wouldn’t have been much Jamie could’ve done. Grey didn’t however, and Jamie really didn’t believe Grey would do such a thing to anyone who did not want it. Not after what he’d come to know of the man. Even if his... lusts still made Jamie wholly uncomfortable. 

They returned to finish their food, Jamie eating one handed. 

“Do you think William should visit a physician soon?” Grey asked Zoe.

“Definitely. I’ll need to figure some stuff out first though. In this time you need documents for everything.”

“How do you go about procuring documents? As, of course, we cannot confess where we are truly from.”

“No, we won’t be able to get real documents, but fortunately this won’t be the first time I’ve, um, played a little fast and loose with the law. I know people.”

“People who can forge these documents?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, hopefully. I’ll need a picture of you guys though.” Zoe reached into her pocket and removed a shiny small device. She cradled it in her hand, sliding her finger across it, then held it up towards Grey. “Smile,” she told him. He just furrowed his brow. “Actually, never mind. They don’t let you smile anymore.”

“What is she doing?” Grey spoke from the side of his mouth. 

Jamie shook his head, as Zoe pivoted the strange thing towards him and said “Your turn.”

When she finished doing whatever she was doing, she turned the thing towards Grey. 

“It’s like looking in a mirror,” he said, turning his head back and forth. “But it’s not following me. That’s unsettling.”

Zoe turned the item towards Jamie, showing him a frozen image of himself, and as much as it pained him, he had to agree with Grey. It was very unsettling. 

Once they finished up dinner, Jamie offered to help clean the dishes but Zoe told him there was no need. She opened up the metal box near the sink and just dropped their plates inside. Its insides were already filled with cups, mugs, cutlery and others dishes. She grabbed a small bluish rectangle from her cupboard and dropped it in a compartment. 

Zoe shut the door and pressed her finger against the front of the metal box. A tiny green light illuminated on it, followed by the sound of churning water, like a river pounding over rocks. 

“Dishwasher,” she said. “Explanation’s in the name.” Zoe paused again, before looking over at Grey, who was disguising a yawn behind his broad hand. “You guys must be totally beat. Willie’s asleep. Though he’ll probably wake up in a few hours for a bottle and for a diaper change, you should sleep too. Say goodbye to your full eight hours though.” Zoe laughed, then frowned. “Shit, I’ve only got the one guest bedroom. The bed’s probably big enough to share though, if you want. It’ll be cozy tonight with Will though. We can go out tomorrow and get a crib.” 

Jamie’s mouth was dry as he tried to parse through Zoe’s barrage of words. One guest room. One bed. Sharing. With Grey. His heart was thudding like a rabbit’s foot in his chest. They’d been close, last night in the leaves, but this was different. This was a room with a closed door and a bed. Jamie didn’t want Grey to ever get the wrong idea again, not like he had that night in Ardsmuir. He’d yet to make himself clear again, after coming to Grey for help with Willie. Was it possible that Grey had come here under the impression Jamie would exchange his body as some kind of payment?

“One of you can also sleep on the couch, but you’ll have to argue that out.” Zoe’s words were drawn out, her eyes narrowed.

“I’ll take the couch,” Grey replied, before Jamie had the chance to say anything himself. “I don’t mind.”

The rabbit between Jamie’s ribs settled down at the major’s offer. It seemed he could put the question of John Grey’s intentions away, for tonight at least. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's tagged in the fic itself and will be a recurring theme, but warning there's some blatant homophobia in this. no more than what's in the LJG books, but just letting you know.

Jamie Fraser woke to something called a pancake breakfast. Zoe had spent the morning cooking up flat, golden cakes smothered with thick pads of yellow butter and warm maple syrup. The air in the house also smelled of something roasted, a rich and earthy scent that filled his senses. 

Pale light streamed in through the window, painting over Zoe’s fair hair. She was dressed in tight, moss green trousers and a thinly striped top. Her jacket was constructed of the same blue jean as his own trousers and her shoes were patterned like a wild cat. The styles of this time were unusual—women in tight trousers for one. 

Zoe offered him an almost disconcertingly white and straight smile. He remembered being dazzled by it the first time he saw it, a shocking blaze in the grey mist of the Scottish highlands. “Cup of coffee?” she asked.

Though he’d never tasted it himself, Jamie had heard of coffee, a drink for the rich imported from Africa or the Americas.

“I have tea too, if you’d like.”

He considered it; something familiar could be comforting. But then he remembered what Claire used to say. _When in Rome_ , which meant joining in the customs of the place you’d found yourself.

“Coffee would be fine, thank ye.”

John Grey was leaning against the counter in his black jeans and grey t-shirt, looking more rumpled now than he did yesterday, sipping from a mug of his own. “It’s quite different from the coffee we had in our time, but better I’d say, less bitter.”

Zoe took a mug down from her cabinet. The white ceramic was painted with the image of a rather rotund orange cat professing a hatred of Mondays. She looked happily at this strange cat, then filled the mug with coffee. “I’m going to give you cream and sugar because if I don’t either you’ll hate it, or you’ll become one of those freaks who only drinks black coffee.” She poured some cream from a bottle that read “French Vanilla” into the mug, then handed it to Jamie. 

As Zoe swept past grey, aiming towards a platter of the pancakes, she swatted at the tail of Grey’s hair like a cat. “You’re going to have to put that up in like a man bun or something—or get it cut. You can’t go around looking like Ichabod Crane.”

Grey awkwardly touched his tied hair. “Should I even ask who that is?”

“I’ll introduce you to him in October. For now, maybe just take it down.”

Grey hesitated, but then tugged the blue velvet ribbon out, letting his hair fall down around his shoulders.

Zoe brought the big platter of pancakes over to the table. “Don’t expect this kind of treatment every morning, but I took a few days off work to help you guys settle. Dig in.”

Jamie took that to mean he was free to eat so he served himself a few of the hot cakes and dug into them with his fork.

“What kind of work do you do, Zoe?” Grey asked, sounding entirely like a man of privilege making conversation at a dinner party. It was almost amusing given their present situation.

“I’m a social worker. Most of my job is helping kids whose parents can’t take care of them find new homes or just get on their feet, if they’re older. When possible, I try to help the birth parents keep custody of their kids—sometimes they’re young or didn’t have good role models themselves and just need a little help.”

“That’s how ye ken how to take care of bairns?” Jamie asked.

“Partially. I also have six younger brothers and sisters.”

“It sounds like rewarding work,” Grey interjected.

“But that’s Monday to Friday.” Zoe smiled devilishly at him. “On the weekends, I sell potions out of my cauldron in the back.”

Jamie could not tell whether that had been said in jest or not. He knew some about Zoe’s witching, but he also aware his knowledge merely skimmed the surface. For on, she’d taught him only a single spell, the one he’d used to summon Zoe. She’d warned him that she wasn’t certain it would work, but it would be good to have essentially a smoke signal, she’d said, in case of emergency. He’d never planned on using it. He could’ve in Ardsmuir and didn’t, though he’d have gotten a dark pleasure out of watching Zoe level the place. He could’ve when he’d first gone to Helwater, and didn’t. Life was life. God’s plan God’s plan and he hadn’t imagined trying to use magic to smash that plan like a hammer. But then there was William—and there wasn’t a power in hell or earth or heaven that would stop Jamie from protecting his son.

After breakfast, Zoe demanded that they go out and get the rest of the stuff they needed for William and some clothes so he and Grey weren’t wearing the same things everyday. She’d also looked down at their feet and said, “Shoes. You will definitely need new shoes. This isn’t a Thanksgiving Day pageant.”

They followed her outside, Grey carrying Will—it already seemed obvious, that he cried less when Grey was carrying him, which was… well, Jamie was unsure what it was.

In any case, the air smelled refreshingly clean, free of horse musk and the bitter stench of the manure. A deep black vehicle loomed before them, dark and formidable, another inexplicable sight.

Zoe squeezed something in her hand and a high pitched noise rang through the air, lights flashing on the black vehicle. “Well, someone’s got to call shotgun?”

“Shotgun?” Grey said, uncertainly.

“You heard the man,” Zoe replied. “He’s up front.”

Grey’s expression matched the one Jamie was certain lived on his own, but they didn’t question it, not aloud at least. Jamie felt he was already filled to the brim with questions and their subsequent answers. This one he would just let be.

Zoe showed them the proper way to secure Willie in the vehicle—car she called it, and then directed Jamie to the other backseat and Grey to the front. Sitting in the front must have been important in this world, if they’d developed a whole ritual around it. He’d remember to say shotgun, next time.

“You need to buckle up. It’s the law,” Zoe said, pulling a strap down across her shoulder and clicking it into something down by her hip.

Both Jamie and John replicated what she had done, though it took a few moments longer.

“I have no idea what this is going to feel like to you,” she warned. “I’ve literally been in cars since the day I was born. But this thing is going to go like forty miles an hour, which is you know, faster than a horse but less, uh, bouncy.”

There was a grumbling sound followed by the trembling beneath them. Suddenly, they were moving backwards, then turning out onto the street. The car wasn’t going very fast yet, at least it didn’t feel like it so, Jamie found himself more interested in the homes on the street, which were nothing like what he’d seen before. The street was lined with brick homes and wood homes, some no more than a story high, like Zoe’s, and others that were two. They each had cars in front of them and patches of flat grey stone where they parked their cars. None of those cars looked exactly like in color, shape or size. 

Zoe turned the car out onto a larger street and other cars moved past them with their dull roars, and beyond that were trees and buildings and more lights, green and red and yellow. As they drove along, Jamie tried to figure out the rules that kept all these fast moving cars from hurtling into each other. The lights were definitely involved, and there was a clicking noise that seemed to indicate something. 

“It’s so… different,” Grey said, and he wasn’t wrong. Not only was it different from their own time, but there was so much variety.

There were honestly so many unusual things about the sights and sounds around them Jamie couldn’t list them all. They blurred together in a melting pot of new and impossible, especially given the speed at which they were moving.

“That over there, that’s a Starbucks. If you’re here for more than a couple months, someone will give you a gift card to there that you’ll forget you have so you never use it, despite continuously going to Starbucks. It’s practically a 21st century right of passage.”

“What is a Starbucks?”

“It’s where you get expensive coffee that you could make at home for one fifth of the price, but it’s more exciting because someone will spell your name wrong on the cup,” Zoe pointed to the right. “That is a gas station. It’s where we buy the fuel we use to make the car move. It’s terrible for the environment and we accidentally made a hole in the atmosphere and we’re all going to die, but let’s not worry about that today.”

Jamie figured he probably should worry about a hole in the atmosphere. It sounded dangerous, but the colors, lights and sounds overwhelmed him. So little nature was left, much of it being swept away and replaced by buildings and those giant slabs of gray and black stone. These new sights pressed in on him from every angle. He missed Lallybroch. He missed Scotland, and maybe not Ardsmuir but he missed Helwater. He at least knew the rules there, understood the game and how to play it, Jamie felt small here, lost, and was once again overcome with a great deal of respect for just what Claire had gone through.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. If Claire could get used to a world without those wonderful hot showers, a world where without many freedoms, a world that seemed so wild and brutal, compared to this world of dark, straight lines, then he could get used to this—everything he hadn’t seen yet— if just for the sake of his son.

Jamie had never seen a shop like this one anywhere in the world. The cavernous space was splashed in white and cut through with red, like the startling rouge on the French women in King Louis’s court. People pushed wheeled carts or carried red baskets provided to them by the proprietors of the store. Unlike the individual bakeries, smiths and booksellers of his own time, this one shop contained it all. Laid before him was a seemingly endless selection of food, clothing, books and a plethora items he couldn’t even name. 

How was Grey feeling at the sight of all this, Jamie couldn’t help but wonder. He was truly the only other person in the world who could begin to understand what he was feeling right now.

And the fruit, the _fruit._ There were mountains of bananas next to sacks of apples, oranges and grapefruits. The stands were packed to the brim with melons as big as his head, and an array of squashes that had to be out of season given the heat outside. And yet they were in multitude. Jamie imagine anyone went hungry anymore in a world so obviously bursting at the seams.

Jamie glanced over at Grey, who was examining a plump apricot. Even for a man of great wealth and status, he appeared impressed, maybe even dumbfounded. 

Across the aisle, a sign read “Pharmacy”. That sinking feeling that always accompanied thoughts of Claire pulled Jamie under. What medications did they have over there that she would’ve had? What did they have that would be new, that would impress her? 

But Jamie had to stop his mind from walking down that road, if he wanted to find his way back and do what he needed to do today for his son.

Zoe had a taken along a list of things they needed for the baby, and placed it in the cart beside Willie’s car seat that she’d nestled into a cart. She’d made Grey push another one.

“We’ll need the room,” she had said, and the more Jamie saw of everything in this place, the more he believed her.

Zoe grabbed the list and handed it to Jamie. He glanced down at it to read as he continued walking.

The list contained all sorts of things. Some he recognized, others he did not. There were burp cloths, onesies with mittens, onesies without mittens, hooded baby towels, baby shampoo, a baby bath. They also needed a crib, a crib mattress and crib sheets. They needed a stroller apparently, pacifiers and a baby thermometer. That wasn’t even all of it. The sheer amount of it was overwhelming. 

“How much does this cost?” Grey asked, picking up a small plush blanket, blue and decorated with stars. That was another thing on Zoe’s list. Grey had gone over it on the ride here, once he’d gotten over the mere shock of the speed of a car.

Zoe took the blanket from him and located an attached square of paper. “About filfteen dollars,” she said.

“Dollars?” Grey asked.

“Uh, they’re pretty much like pounds.”

“This costs _fifteen_ pounds?” Grey’s voice cracked.

Jamie was speechless. Fifteen pounds could be a years wages for several men.

“Money’s a little different now. Like I make seventy-five thousand dollars a year and I’m definitely not that rich by today’s standard./“

Grey’s brow furrowed as he appeared to ponder this. “So this blanket is an appropriate price?”

“Yep. Go ahead and throw it in the cart, if you like it.”

“I’ll pay you back, Zoe. Eventually. Somehow,” Jamie said. He had no idea how that would ever be possible. 

“Let’s not worry about that right now, okay.” She grabbed an item of clothes off the rack and held it up to Jamie. “What do you think of this?”

This went on for what seemed like hours but probably was not. The three of them going down Zoe’s list to make sure they’d gotten everything they needed. After they’d finished getting the items for Willie, she forced him and Grey over to a section of the store filled with clothes like the odd ones they were wearing now.

Zoe helped them decide on items, as neither of them had any idea what was in fashion and would keep them from standing out. The clothes did seem, however, to be far more varied than in their own time. He noticed it just in the people passing by, everyone looked very different. Jamie had even seen a woman with short hair like a boy’s that was the brightest pink he’d ever seen in his life. 

In the end, Jamie ended up with more jeans, some shorts because apparently, according to Zoe, it was about to get really hot and humid over the summer. He and Grey chose more t-shirts, some shirts with short sleeves that buttoned up the front, some longer sleeved ones as well and some cotton pants.

Zoe sent them off to some rooms to try on the clothes for fit. Most clothes weren’t specifically tailored to a person here, as most people did not know how to sew, and there were so many different sizes already available. You had to try the different sizes to see which ones worked. Zoe had come close with her choices made the other day, but she said it wasn’t perfect, so they had to make sure. 

Zoe seemed to be enjoying herself, dressing them like dolls, as she fed Willie his bottle. She was closely examining the shoulders of a shirt Jamie had put on, her lips pressed together in concentration, when John stepped out of one of the stalls.

He was wearing a tight pair of wine red trousers, the cuff just above his ankle and a soft-knit shirt Zoe had called a polo, which clung closely to his chest and arms. Jamie’s mind, suddenly, rebelliously, flashed to the moment in Ardsmuir when Grey had put his hand on Jamie’s. 

“Goddamn,” Zoe said, her mouth agape.

“Is that good?” Grey asked, biting at his bottom lip.

“Just put it in the cart.” Zoe laughed. “You’re getting it.”

After the mountain of baby supplies and clothes, Zoe dragged them to another ‘aisle’, where she insisted they purchase toothpaste with fluoride and packs of dental floss so they “didn’t end up with wooden teeth like George Washington”. She also strongly insisted that they both use something called deodorant, that smelled rich and woodsy. 

They purchased all the items and the amount made Jamie’s head spin. He knew money was different then, but he also had a feeling, given the amount they’d purchased, it wasn’t a small amount for Zoe. He felt guilty, though she did not attempt to make him feel so.

After they returned home and carted everything into the house, Jamie put Willie down for a nap and decided to start on something simple he could focus on and get done easily.

At Zoe’s insistent request, Grey had dressed in some of his new clothes, a pair of black trousers, a belt the color of deerskin, and a green shirt that’s pattern, though slightly different, reminded Jamie of a tartan. He’d also pulled his hair back up, from when he’d taken it down at breakfast and returned it to the confines of his velvet ribbon. 

Jamie found himself staring at the man and mostly, or entirely, because if he had to look at these small wooden pieces for another second, he would have to use one of them to impale himself in the eye. 

“I need one marked D3,” Grey said, a sharp edge to his voice. His jaw was set, tense, as was the rest of his body 

With a sigh, Jamie sorted through the wooden pieces in front of him for the fifth time. “There isn’t a D3. There’s a C3 or D2 or D4.”

“If there’s a D4, how is there no bloody D3!” John shouted, throwing the instructions against the wall hard, knocking off one of Zoe’s small paintings. 

After the exasperating frustration of the last several hours trying to build this crib, he could not blame the man for his outburst. Had Jamie had the instructions in hand he would’ve done the same thing.

Zoe stuck her head in the room, eyes wide and a grimace on her face. “You boys seem to have that well in hand.” 

They both snapped their heads toward her and glared.

She let out a small laughing and smacked the door frame. “Well, I’ll be back in a bit. Got an errand to run and I’ll bring home dinner. I’m thinking burgers tonight.”

Jamie had no idea what burgers were but he was happy simply to imagine a time where he was doing anything but trying to construct this stupid thing. It would have probably been easier to chop down a tree and make it himself. 

“Do you speak any Spanish?” Grey asked. He’d picked the instructions back up and was visibly recommitting himself to the project with a sigh. He pulled back shoulders. “Maybe these directions will make more sense in Spanish.”

Lord John Grey was many things, not the least of which was frustratingly determined. 

In the end, Grey’s determination and Jamie’s handiness with carpentry paid off and they had created a lovely and sturdy cherrywood crib for William. It had taken them hours, however, and by the time, Zoe returned with dinner, they were both starving. Jamie couldn’t tell if burgers were _that_ delicious or if he was just _that_ hungry, but either way, it was one of the best meals he’d had in his life.

After dinner, Jamie was relaxing on the sofa, flipping through one of Zoe’s books on her coffee table. It was filled with images of nature: great deserts, snow capped mountains, impossible cityscapes. 

Grey, who’d been sitting on the chair holding William, stood and said, “I’ll put him to bed. He’s falling asleep and it’s rather late anyway.”

Jamie nodded at him. “Thank ye.” He shut the book and placed it back on the coffee table. 

Jamie couldn’t believe it, but after all that food, his stomach was still growling, so he went to the kitchen in search of something to eat. An apple or a peach, maybe a handful grapes. Only a fool wouldn’t take advantage of all the fruit he could eat. However, it wasn’t fruit that he found. 

On the counter in the kitchen, there was a stack of paper with words and phrases Jamie didn’t understand fully: primary insurance, social security and zip code. Besides those papers, he caught sight of his own image on a small, hard card. There was one of Grey as well. Curiously, he picked it up. The words Illinois and Driver’s License were printed across it, but when he inspected it closer, his insides twisted. Instead of Grey being printed above the name John, it was Fraser. He set it down and the grabbed the card with his own likeness on it. That read Fraser as well.

Zoe walked into the kitchen and grabbed a cup off the counter and took a sip.

“What’s this?” Jamie pointed down at the stack of papers and the two cards on the counter. 

“Oh, they’re the fake identification cards I got so you can take Will to the doctor.”

“They’re wrong,” Jamie said tensely, feeling the shaking strain of it near his heart. “This says John Fraser. His last name’s Grey.”

Zoe yawned. “They didn’t get them wrong. I told them to print the cards that way.”

“Why would ye ever do that?” Jamie snapped, grabbing at Zoe’s arm, that strain inside him breaking free. 

“Dude, the hell is your problem?” 

Zoe tore herself from his grasp and, despite it all, Jamie regretted touching her so harshly. With her magic, she was stronger than him, stronger than four or five men, but it still felt wrong. 

She continued, “They’ll ask less questions at the doctor’s office if you all have the same last name. It’s not a big deal.”

Jamie could manage to physically restrain himself, but his voice, his emotions, control of them lived currently somewhere beyond his reach. “What kind of questions could they ask that would require John being a Fraser?! Reprint them.” 

“What kind of questions? Oh, I don’t know. Like maybe why a Scottish man shows up in a pediatrician’s office in suburban Illinois with a week old baby and no mother or any record of the child’s birth .”

Jamie had to admit there was validity in those questions and he could see a physician pursuing it out of concern for the child, but it didn’t make him feel any better. 

“How does this ridiculous rouse possibly answer that question?” Jamie could hear the contempt in his voice and he hoped that was all Zoe could hear as well. Not the confusion and fear and pain that lied beneath that contempt like a buried corpse. 

“Because, asshole, if you and John appear married, then they’ll probably assume you adopted the child from a surrogate and not inquire much farther as long as we give them some paperwork, which I’m in the process of fabricating.” 

“Married? To John Grey? Ye are raving. I’m not some unholy _sodomit_ e and I won’t pretend to be.”

Zoe went white as linen, tension tightening her up like an archer’s bow. Her eyes were fierce as fire as she took a step toward him. “James Fraser, I’ve put up with a lot from you since we’ve met because I love you like a brother, you miserable son-of-bitch, but this is my home and If you ever talk like that under my roof again, I’ll throw you out on your ass so hard and so fast, you’ll land right back in 18th century Scotland, you hear me?”

It was then that Jamie noticed Grey standing not far behind them, frozen, expressionless.

He could see something like pity on Zoe’s face, when she realized it as well. “John, we were just—“

“I laid Will down to sleep,” John said passively, not looking at either of them. “I’m going to head out for a walk. Could use the fresh air.”

“John…” Zoe tried again, but he was already out the front door. She looked that direction, clearly pondering whether or not to follow him. Instead, a heavy breath escaped her chest as she appraised Jamie, shaking her head. She left Jamie standing there alone and moments later, the door to her bedroom slammed shut hard. 

It wasn’t hard to find the liquor in Zoe’s house. It only took him about five minutes to besitting outside, drinking straight from a bottle labeled Patron. It wasn’t like any alcohol he had before, other than the familiar burn that accompanied each swallow. But the drink worked as well as whisky to keep his thoughts at a distance, as if he were looking at them through the fog on a moor. He wished the spirits had been even more powerful though, that they’d been able to wash away all his thoughts until he was left with nothing to mull over, but Jamie wasn’t blessed with oblivion. Instead, he only had the fog for solace.

Jamie didn’t understand this modern world. Didn’t understand Zoe or how _he_ was suddenly the one on the defensive, the one with something to be ashamed of. Not that shame was an emotion Jamie was unfamiliar with. He’d felt shame before, more times than he could count. Shame for not being able to keep his family together. Shame for not being able to protect Jenny from Randall. Shame for not being able to protect himself. Shame for what happened with Geneva Dunsany. Shame for that moment with BlackJack when he’d _liked_ it. 

Jamie shuddered. His stomach churned sick and cold. He could feel the drink, whatever it was, trying to force its way back out. But if he stopped drinking then he’d stop being drunk and if he stopped being drunk there wouldn’t be a fog between him and those memories. 

_The body was the body and it had a mind of his own and it didn’t mean anything._ And it didn’t. It really didn’t. But then again, it was never BlackJack that was problem now, was it? But that was not a road Jamie Fraser could ever walk down and come back out the other side in anything but pieces. 

They could be genuine friends, if only John Grey wasn’t what he was… if only he wasn’t plagued by the same perversions as BlackJack Randall. _But then he isn’t and you know it._

Men like John Grey were supposed to be men like Jack Randall—snakes in the grass biting at the heels of the innocent, taking whatever they wanted—they were supposed to be men like Jack Randall or they were supposed to barely be men at all, weak, afraid of women, stunted in adulthood like boys. Men like John Grey were not supposed to be, well, men like John Grey.

Jamie had wanted to hate him, ever since the day Grey had put a knife to his throat, he had wanted to despise him. But, goddamn him, he never could hate Grey. Not in Scotland, not at Ardsmuir, not at Helwater. Sometimes Jamie wanted to kill the man, but he never could manage to hate him. 

Lord John Grey was so many damned awful and wonderful things at once, and it was infuriating. 

Jamie just shook his head, put his lips on the bottle and threw back his head to try for that oblivion once again.

Jamie woke up with an axe between his eyes. At least, he’d sworn it had to be. His head ached, causing pain to radiate through his body and throb with each beat of his heart. It had been a long time since he’d that much to drink. And clearly, age had not been kind to his ability to handle his spirits. 

With a groan, he sat up. Second to second, he became aware of his surroundings. He wasn’t at his bunk in Helwater, the prison at Ardsmuir or in his time at all. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the guest bed at Zoe’s. He wasn’t even in the damn house. Jamie was outside, his limbs cramped up onto the houndstooth cushions on her outdoor sofa.

The twilight sky from when he’d blacked out had been cast into darkness. Only a few visible stars dotted through the swathes of inky black above him. Zoe had explained that the price of electric lights had been the dulling of the night sky. It was unfortunate to say the least, but right now, Jamie was grateful for their hindered shine. Even starlight would hurt his eyes after the amount of—he picked up the bottle to remember what had rendered him thus—Tequila, whatever that was. 

Jamie walked back in through the sliding doors into the kitchen. His gaze cast over the counter where the paperwork and the identifications cards still sat. They felt more like eyes watching him than anything else. Watching, waiting.

He stepped past them nervously, planning to make his way to the guest room, when he noticed a light on in the living room. Just a small lamp on one of the side tables. Jamie strode forward to turn off the lamp, but stopped abruptly. Grey was asleep in the nearby chair. Willie too, dressed in the new sleep clothes they’d purchased earlier—a mittened onesie, green as sea foam and printed with puppies.

Grey’s head laid softly on wing of the arm chair, his masculine arms cradling Jamie’s son protectively. Jamie’s throat squeezed tight, his chest too. He let out a long breath to steady himself. 

_So many damned awful and wonderful things at once._

A blanket had fallen around Grey’s feet and legs, like a wool bird’s nest. It must’ve slipped off when he drifted to sleep after Willie’s nighttime feeding. 

Jamie knelt down and pulled the blanket back up over Grey’s lap. He stood there, for just another moment, observing the silent slumber of Grey and his son, then turned off the lamp and walked back towards the kitchen. 


	5. Chapter 5

When John first arrived, the witch told him that things were different in this time—that he could lay his burden down here—so why did it feel like he’d picked that burden back up for the first time in years?

The wind whipped against his face as hurried down the grey path between the street and grass. His cheek and neck flushed warm with the heat of anger. It surprised him—not the anger—but where it was directed. Jamie had said nothing he had not heard before, either from the man himself or from nearly everyone else in his life, family or friend or foe. Most not knowingly directed at him, though the affect on his soul remained the same. Now, however, he _was_ angry, but not at Jamie. At Zoe.

His feelings may not have been fair, rationally he knew that. It didn’t keep those feelings from festering like individual, diseased boils. It was maybe—certainly—the first time in his life anyone had defended him. Well, not _him_ , but his attraction to men. Hal knew what he was and John was reasonably certain his brother would defend him to the death, but that was because they were brothers, not because Hal felt sympathies for his kind. 

Zoe’s defense rang in his ears, like a clanged symbol trembling through his body. He was a stranger to her. Jamie was not and yet… she’d done him a unique kindness—John understood that. Still, his mind kept reaching farther back into that overheard conversation.

Zoe wanted John and Jamie to pretend they were married for the sake of Willie obtaining a doctor’s visit, which meant that in this time, not only was it seen as acceptable or overlooked, these relationships were legally recognized and legally, maybe even religiously, binding. 

A thrill ran through him. It was exciting, the idea of this freedom. But, then everything turned uneasy inside him, like sickness. If it was exciting, it was terrifying too. His attractions to men had always been private. They were secret and quiet things, like lights he somehow kept contained in his hands, unseen until he wanted to peek in, bask in the comfort of their glow.

Maybe, he considered, it wasn’t just Jamie that found the prospect of masquerading as... husbands upsetting. He’d hidden this part of himself, under threat of death, for the vast majority of his life. It might have been irrational, but those natural instincts that kept him safe on the battlefield, run, hide, fight, were striking in him now like flint. John felt vulnerable, exposed. Over the years, John had learned to cleave himself in two and hide that part of him away. You didn’t take fine china from the cabinet and lay it in the street to be trampled. Jamie may have insulted him, but Zoe had left him bare and unarmed.

John couldn’t go back to the house now. That much he knew, and so he kept walking, paying just enough attention to where he was going that he could find his way back when he regained his composure. At least here the streets were all clearly marked, explicitly green and clean. Grant Street, Pershing Drive, Sheridan Avenue.

Each home had its own flat of grass and usually a tree or two, towering oaks and maples. In the dusk light, an elderly couple sitting outside on their porch waved at him as he passed. He gave them a courteous nod and smile at out of practiced politeness. Not long after, John encountered a woman walking a black dog on a long pink rope and, bizarrely, when the creature defecated, she picked it up and kept it in a bag. It was strange and dirty work, but these sorts of behaviors must have been why this time was so much cleaner than his. They were in some type of city and yet, the air was much more akin to standing in uncivilized moors of Scotland. 

Thankfully, before he could think more of Scotland, his thoughts were cut off by two young girls passing in a near blur in front of him. They were both riding contraptions he’d never seen before. Two wheeled, bright colored with baskets on front. They had on loose t-shirts and ripped blue jeans. Big smiles lit up their small faces, dirt obvious on freckled cheeks beneath shiny, hard caps. In his time, they’d have been scolded for not being ladylike. But he could see their mother watching from a distance and she looked perfectly content with their behavior. 

It truly was a different world—and John did not know how to feel about it. It was wondrous, that could not be denied. Wondrous and full of freedoms. Still, it was not his world—this world belonged to those daring girls in ripped up jeans—and God knew if he could ever find a place of his own in it.

Night had fallen by the time John made his way back to Zoe’s. His walk had been guided by towering electric street lamps that cast bluish glow over the street. Through windows, John caught glimpses of television’s flickering images, and he breathed in the savory scents of suppers floating out of the houses and onto the wind. 

It was silent in Zoe’s house. He could only assume she was locked behind her bedroom door. Since the door to Jamie’s room was open, he peaked in to see baby William still asleep in the crib he and Jamie had constructed. John hoped not to see Jamie at all and his wish seemed granted until he noticed an open cabinet in the kitchen and a light glowing in the back porch. 

Jamie’s limbs were spread out on Zoe’s outdoor sofa, his stag-red hair a stark contrast to the black-and-white fabric. His arm had flopped down to the side and his fingers were wrapped around a liquor bottle. It was hard to believe, and yet not, that what Zoe had said led Jamie to drinking himself unconscious. 

John found himself staring out that small window until a small cry startled him. He let out a breath and started walking towards William. Zoe’s door opened, nearly hitting him. A small cry of surprise escaped his lips.

“Sorry,” Zoe said, meekly. He hadn’t even known meekly was possible for Zoe. “I was going to get Will. Didn’t know you were back.”

John could see she’d changed into this time’s version of sleep clothes—a heather grey University of Chicago t-shirt that hung down to her thighs and, as far as John could see, nothing else.

Will let out another cry. 

“I’ll check in on him,” John said. “You go on back to bed.”

Her lips pressed into a faint smile. It looked almost as if she wanted to say something to him and he was glad when she just ducked back through her door without a word. 

John found William awake in his crib, letting out the kind of unearthly cry only an infant can manage. He gently hushed the baby as he scooped him into his arms. He bounced the child and gave him another soft hush.

“Are you hungry, Willie?” 

The baby let out a soft sputter, almost like a reply.

“You are aren’t, you? Let’s get you some milk. Yes, that’s what you need.

The formula wasn’t easy to make one handed, but he managed and before long, Willie’s cries were soothed by his nighttime meal. 

“That’s a boy,” John said, smiling despite himself. “Drink up.”

With the baby suckling on the bottle, John wandered into the living room. He turned on one of the small lamps for light—still a remarkable sight—and sat down one of the chairs. 

Watching little brown-haired Will drinking away made it impossible for John not to smile, not to feel a bubble of warmth rise inside him. There were no sounds but the quiet sucking and the occasional car rumbling by on the road. In this relative silence, he watched the baby. What would his mother think of him now, holding this child close as if it were John’s own?

A sadness shifted over him. Would John ever see his mother again? Likely not. And Hal, his brother, they had their differences but he loved him. Percy, well, he hoped Percy could take the position he’d been given in the military and leverage it to build a good life for himself. He wondered what would’ve happened to this baby in his arms now, had John just loved Percy Wainwright a little more than he had and Jamie Fraser a little less than he did? 

John shut his eyes and breathed He didn’t want to think on it, pick at it like scab that would scar that if he couldn’t manage to leave it alone. Instead he focused on Willie’s drooping eyes and the mesmerizing view of the formula swirling and emptying away.

Suddenly, he remembered a song his mother used to sing him. He didn’t know the name of it, but he recalled the words about the woods and a creek and a little blue bird perched on the highest branch. 

He grabbed a soft quilt from a nearby basket and pulled it up and over himself an the swaddled baby legs. John set the empty bottle aside and softly sang the words to that remembered song thinking of nothing but the tiny innocent breaths of William Fraser. 

When John woke, he still had Willie nestled in his arms. The baby was just beginning to stir, though his small eyes had yet to open. In the bleariness of waking, John recalled moments, like half-dreams, from the night before. Singing the old words of his mother’s song, the blanket slipping off his legs and onto the floor—being just awake enough to notice, but enough to pick it back up. The blanket was on him now though. The realization brought on another memory, vague and fuzzy as a shadow. Big hands picking up that blanket, covering him up again—and a fiery halo of red watching over him like an avenging angel.

With an unsteady breath, John blinked the thought away.

He’d thought Willie was waking up, but it seemed the baby had drifted back off to sleep. Quietly, he stood from the chair and walked to Jamie’s room. The door was wide open, though Jamie was in bed—face first in the pillows. He crept into the room and laid Willie down gently. With one stolen look at Jamie’s sleeping form, John slipped back out of the bedroom.

After a quick shower, John wrestled through the bags of new clothes he’d purchased and pulled on a pair of camel trousers and a white shirt with buttons down the front. He pulled his hair back into the one green ribbon he’d brought with him. As John examined himself in the mirror, he wondered if he should do what Zoe suggested and cut his hair short. It hadn’t been short since he was a child, but even in his own time, it wasn’t unheard of for men to have their hair cropped short. Percy had. 

_God, Percy._

Again, John did what he could to shake the thought from his mind and walked to the kitchen.

He felt bad rummaging through the cabinets, though Zoe had said they were free to help themselves to any thing they wanted. There were bananas in a bowl of fruit on the counter, he remembered though, and could at least use something in his stomach. 

In search of bananas, he found something else. The papers and the ID that had caused Jamie such distress and had led to the conflict between him and Zoe were laid out on the counter.

He wouldn’t have believed it himself if he hadn’t recognized the lettering, but these papers had been completed in Jamie’s own hand. 

John wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring down at the papers, trying to understand them. Only that it had been going on long enough that he’d decided to take them over to the table so he could sit down. It wasn’t just that Jamie had filled out the papers—thought there were missing lines, such as for insurance—that left thoughts twisting around inside him. Something else though had John unsettled. Before he could think more about it, he heard someone walk into the kitchen.

“Do you want some coffee, John?” Zoe said, interrupting his thoughts. He couldn’t bring himself to reply. She tried again, “John? What is it?”

John didn’t look at her, just kept his eyes on the papers. “Jamie filled out that paperwork, for the doctors.”

Zoe sighed and sat down with him at the table. “I’m sorry, by the way. I didn’t know the IDs would piss Jamie off like that."

John examined the papers quietly. Jamie Fraser was written in Jamie’s own hand, along a line that read “Parent/Guardian”. There was a second line that read the same thing, but in this one, Jamie had written John Fraser. It made his insides twist up like the roots of an old tree. Something had been bothering him, ever since he’d overheard Zoe and Jamie’s argument. Gnawing at him, though he’d been unable to articulate it, even to himself. He’d try now though.

“Since last night, I’ve been thinking…” He gave Zoe a piercing stare. “Couldn’t I have simply not gone with him? He could’ve pretended William’s mother passed. I could’ve simply been a friend or a brother.”

Zoe frowned and looked down at the table, her blonde hair obscuring her face. “It was stupid,” she admitted. “I was being stupid. I’m sorry. This is real life, not _The Parent Trap_ , and I fucked up.” She lifted her gaze. “I act rashly sometimes, _all_ the time. I knew you _liked_ him, and I thought. I don’t know what I thought. I’m an idiot. Sometimes. Not all the time. Jamie will tell you that.” She waited, as if she was expecting John to speak, but he didn’t know what to say. Zoe went on, “It’s not an excuse, but you said Jamie knew about you and I figured since you were still friends he didn’t care.”

“Friends, right.” John huffed. “I may regard Jamie as a friend or at least wish that I could, but he would not feel the same.”

“He came to you to help with his son.” There was a question in her statement.

“God knows why he did that. Desperation, I imagine. I was the governor at Ardsmuir prison where he was held. I was able to secure him indentured servitude at my friends’ estate, and I would visit him quarterly. I told myself it was to ensure sure he was well treated, but the truth is, I just wanted to see him. I don’t even know why.” John let his head fall into his hands and he just sat there for a moment, struck numb. The weight of each individual cost falling down on his shoulders now like heavy coins. “I reckon I’m ‘stupid’ sometimes too.” 

Zoe touched his arm. “But not _all_ the time.”

He looked up from the dark shelter of his hands. “What was I thinking? I had a life there, my brother and my mother. My work in the army. There was even a man, Percy. He’ll have no idea where I’ve gone. Or maybe he’ll guess. And this whole world, it’s as if I’m on another planet. I’ve traveled all over the world, but this... I’m in over my head.” He barely understood why he was venting all of this to a woman he barely knew, but it just came pouring out of him.

Zoe gave him a sympathetic smile. “I know it seems like a lot at first. The first time I ever traveled… it was terrifying and I knew I had the power to go back. It might not feel like it right now, but you’ll adapt.”

“What if I don’t want to?” he snapped, immediately regretting his harsh tone.

Zoe lent John another soft smile with an evident touch of sadness. “I can take you back, if that’s what you really want.”

Only manners kept John from laughing aloud. If only he could go back, if only he hadn’t be so momentarily overcome with shock and confusion and the deep, dizzying fire of passion that had rendered him stupid... 

“So I can go back and be shot for desertion or hanged for treason,” John replied. “I would do it if I thought I could fix this mess for my family, but my return wouldn’t repair anything. Just turn a wound into a public spectacle.” 

It was hard to imagine what Hal and his mother would be facing back in his time, and not only that, but the confusion they’d be feeling.

“I think you… and don’t take this the wrong way… but I think you might be, um, treating yourself a little harshly.” She stood from the table.

John heard Zoe speak, but only faintly took on the meaning of her words. He’d been deep in his own thoughts for a while now. They were spilling over, a bit.

“How am I any different than Joseph Trevelyan…” John noticed Zoe’s confused look and clarified. “He was betrothed to my cousin, but I discovered he was having a secret affair with a married woman, and he ran away with her to India. I despised him for it, at the time. Rightfully.”

Zoe observed him, her narrowed eyes ringed by tiny lines. “Are you betrothed to someone?”

With his thumb, John chased down a moving throb in his forehead. “No, of course not, but there was Percy.”

“And your relationship was serious?”

“No… not exactly.” John thought of Jamie, of that feeling he’d get in his chest when he’d see him, sharp as a sword-tip and just as dangerous. “He knew my heart was somewhere else.”

“Is Jamie married? Are you two having an affair?”

John let out an insolent puff of air. “Not likely.”

“And despite what that old dickwad Christopher Columbus thought, this ain’t India.” Zoe smiled, hip out to the side, hand on the counter, each fingernail as red as his uniform coat. 

“I’ve always considered myself a man of honor and I judged Trevelyan for what he did, for abandoning his responsibilities and not just to my cousin, who I wasn’t going to allow him to marry anyway.”

Zoe rolled her eyes, turning her back. “Oh, you weren’t going to _allow_ her.”

“The man had syphilis.” John defended himself against an attack he only knew was being waged by the sound of Zoe’s voice and her sudden stiff demeanor.

“That isn’t the point. The point is she is a person and you shouldn’t be able to allow or disallow her from anything.” These words were almost said under her breath, as if she wasn’t certain she’d wanted John to hear them.

“You think a sixteen year old girl should be allowed to choose whom she marries?”

“No, I don’t think a _child_ should be getting fucking married!” Zoe then lowered her voice, some gentleness returning. “I’m sorry that you left a lot behind. I am. That sucks. But I’m pretty sure your wealthy family and the British army is going to be perfectly fine without you. You made a choice to help someone. That doesn’t make you a villain.”

Then why did John feel so precisely like a villain? He understood the intrigue of passion, the temptation of it. John was not immune to it. If he were, he’d never have brought Percy to his bed, or reached out for Jamie’s hand that night, or taken or given to any men before them. If he was immune to it, there could not have been Hector. But John had believed himself to be reasonable. He could love deeply but he did not have to love recklessly. What was the value of love when it swallowed everything else you were whole? And, God, had he gone and let it swallow him?

“Honor is important in our time, the _mos_ t important thing. I did a dishonorable thing, and now I have to live with that.” John stood from the table. “ It’s not fair to expect you to understand.”

“Well, excuse me, _Lord_ John, if I’m not particularly impressed by a concept of honor created by a society that buys and sells human beings like cattle.” She let out breath. “I get we’re from different times and we’re not always going to see eye to eye and maybe I could manage to have a bit more compassion for those differences, but if you’re waiting for me to agree you did a shitty thing because you stepped in to help when someone you cared about was in need, when an innocent child was in need, because it might damage your family reputation, you’re going to be waiting a long ass time.”

With that, Zoe left him alone in the kitchen with the name “John Fraser” staring up at him.


	6. Chapter 6

“Welcome to Modern World 101, boys.” Zoe said, as she stood in her living room beside a white board resting on an easel. The words “21st Century Basics” were written on it in red ink. 

John was sat besides Jamie on the sofa. Cradled in Jamie’s arms, Willie was swaddled in a periwinkle blanket, his blue eyes open wide, a pacifier bobbing in his mouth. After lunch, Zoe had corralled them into this room and announced that it was time for them to start learning a few things. This would be their first lesson, she had stated, but far from their last.

Zoe tapped a yard stick on the board and cleared her throat. “Okay, we’re going to start with the ‘I hit my head and the EMTs are going to ask me questions to make sure I don’t have a brain injury’ basics, so we can get you through being at the doctor’s office without me.” She put down the yard stick and picked up a blue marker, snapping off the cap. The tip squeaked as she wrote on the board. “This is the year 2020. It’s April, just like it was in your own time. As I mentioned before we’re in the city of Green Hills in DuPage County in the state of Illinois.” Zoe gestured in their direction. “Make sure you memorize the new date of birth on your IDs. I kept the month and date the same, but I had to change the year obviously. For example, John, your ID says you were born in 1990. Oh and if anyone asks you who the President is the appropriate response is ‘don’t make me say it’.”

John blinked at her, his mind trying to process all the information. Even though this wasn’t _that_ much, John knew it was just the start, but he felt as incompetent and overwhelmed as he had when he’d first joined the army.

“What’s a president?” Jamie asked and John was grateful for it.

“Oh, right. Uh, it’s the name of our leader here.” She wrote ‘president’ on the board, though John wasn’t exactly sure what writing it there added to the conversation. “Elected by the people, though it can get a bit unrepresentative. The most powerful individual in the United States government, but not all powerful. The president isn’t a king or a dictator, and will only be president for a maximum of eight years. Our government bodies consist of individuals selected by citizens through a voting process with terms where they will have to seek to be re-elected every few years. I can’t fit it all in today, but suffice it to say, there are no titles passed down by birth here. No dukes or earls or,”— Zoe’s gaze focused on John—“ _lords_. We know only two lords in this country: Jesus Christ and Voldemort.”

John wanted to ask what the hell a Voldemort was, but he was even more curious about the idea of voting for leadership. It reminded him of what he’d read in books about Greece. He was curious who exactly got to make such an important decision.

“What qualifies you to vote?” John asked.

“Officially it’s just being a citizen over the age of eighteen.”

“There are no requirements such as land ownership?” he inquired.

Zoe shook her head. “No, but people do try to fuss with the system to gain advantages by keeping certain demographics from voting. Again, way too complicated for today.”

“And women?”

“Yes,” Jamie added, then looked to Zoe for reassurance. “Right? Yes?”

“Jamie is correct. I am allowed to vote—without my husband’s permission and everything.” Zoe looked to her board. “Where were we? Oh, right.” She wiped away the word ‘president’, somehow, with a cloth, and replaced it with “Chillax, Bro”, grabbed her yard stick and tapped the words. “There’s a lot less formality here. So, when you meet someone and you give them your name, a first name is often enough, but just a first and last name. Remember no titles. Doctors and the military or politicians are the only ones I can think of who use their titles. Doctor, general, mayor, governor, senator etcetera. A handshake is the proper greeting for pretty much everyone but children. There’s not a separate greeting for women. Equality of the sexes is a value here. Women and men should be treated more or less the same.” Her attention focused on Jamie. “Jamie has a bit of experience with this between myself and Claire. Same with race. It is illegal for organizations to discriminate against someone based on their race.”

This was quite a lot to absorb all at once. Not that John had a problem with any of it. It was a comfort to hear that over time people were not judged by their sex or the color of their skin. He thought Hal would be plussed, however, at a world without the order and consistency of titles and inherited leadership.

“Oh and one final thing before I release you two into the wild.” She erased “Chillax, Bro” and replaced it with “Hands to yourself”. “Speaking of illegality, don’t hit anyone. I’m looking at you, Jamie. But also you, John. I don’t know you but you seem a bit… punchy. You don’t just get to deck people here when you don’t like what they say. That’s called assault and battery and you could end up in jail or with a misdemeanor or a fine that I really don’t want to pay.”

Jamie gave her a narrow eyed glare. “We will try to contain ourselves.”

She gave him an exaggerated smile. “Thank you.” Zoe waved the yard stick. “Class dismissed.”

At her words, Jamie stood from the couch, cradling Willie in his arms. When John was sure he was gone, he approached Zoe, who was cleaning up the unnecessary easel and white board.

“Can I ask you something?” his voice was a whisper.

“Of course,” Zoe turned to face John, her face serious. “What is it?”

“In my time, men like me, well, we could be hanged. Jamie and I are meant to pretend we are married, I can only assume that means the act of… sodomy is legal here?”

She laughed. “You’re absolutely free to take it up the ass here if you want, but I’d refrain from calling it sodomy.”

“Buggery, then?” he asked, his lips tilted into a half smile.

“Anal sex,” she said. 

“Rather formal, is it not?” 

“We mostly just use fucking and don’t concern ourselves with the details of exactly what is being fucked.” Zoe put a gentle hand on his forearm. “There are still bigots, but like I said. It’s not most people and the laws are on your side, not theirs. Men can have sex with each other, women too for that matter. And, like you and Jamie are going to pretend to be this afternoon, they can be married.”

John let out a breath. It was so much to take in—to accept. Not just the idea that men could get married, but that he would have to pretend to have that bond with Jamie Fraser. “Hard to believe."

“People marry for love now, John. There’s not really any other reason to. I mean there are the tax breaks but…” her lips flipped into a smile, drawing attention to her intended joke.

“How… how on earth did we win this fight?” he said more to himself than to Zoe. 

“Time makes more converts than reason,” she said quietly, matching his own tone. He must have looked strangely at her because she added, “It’s common sense.”

John drew back, feeling insulted. Very little in this new world was common sense to him, even if it would be to someone like Zoe. 

Her eyes went wide and she seemed to sense she’d offended him. “Oh no, sorry,” Zoe apologized. “ _Common Sense_ by Thomas Paine. What I said… it’s from a pamphlet from the American Revolution. Paine’s actually alive right now in your time.”

“Oh.” His brow knit together as he worked out her meaning. Time was a healer of many things, he figured.

“It’s that…” Zoe added, her voice softening, turning thoughtful. “And also centuries of good people willing to give their lives to lay down one plank so another could be laid down, until we finally built the bridge. Well, at least one bridge.”

“So,” he said, matching her own softness. “It was done as all important things are done?”

Not today—as John had enough on his mind with William’s upcoming appointment—but one day, he’d ask Zoe to teach him more about the path to a world where men like him, women too, could love freely. For now though, he’d simply be grateful. Not for himself, he still didn’t know what this world would hold for him, but for the others who lived now who wouldn’t know the pain and fear and others like him had known.

Zoe pulled her phone out of her back pocket and looked at the screen. “Shit. We should get going now, if we want to miss traffic. We’ll be late otherwise.”

The Doctor’s Office smelled like freshly-stilled alcohol. Everything appeared shiny and clean, from the sky blue chair with its paper apron, to the tiles floors to the gleaming metal cart. Little Will was asleep on Jamie’s broad chest, a muslin wrapped package held to the Scots heart. Zoe had dropped them off and planned to run to the store, during the appointment. 

The door opened and a black-skinned woman stepped into the small room with them. She had narrow shoulders and expressive eyes with short hair, cropped almost to her scalp. “Hello, I’m Dr. Applegate. We’re seeing Will for his first physical today is that right?”

Jamie stood up first, then John followed. He’d never met a female doctor, let alone an African female doctor. Not that he’d ever given much credence to the idea that skin color defined anything about a person. He’d had far too much experience with all manner of people to buy into that. 

“That’s right,” Jamie said, then cleared his throat.

“You’re the fathers, I presume.” Dr. Applegate extended a hand to Jamie. John saw him hesitate, like he wasn’t quite sure how to take a woman’s hand, but then settled on taking it as he would a man’s, like Zoe had told them to.

“I’m Jamie Fraser, and this is John… Fraser.”

John didn’t miss the clench of Jamie’s jaw, the hesitation, when he said it. 

Dr. Applegate extended her hand to John now and he took it. “It’s good to meet you both,” she said. “And little William, of course. If you can just lay him down here on the scale, I can check his weight,” she said to Jamie, who responded with a curt nod, then did as he instructed.

“Six pounds nine ounces,” she said, then typed something into her… computer? Yes, Zoe had called it a computer. “He’s in the fortieth percentile.”

“Fortieth percentile?” Jamie asked.

“Weight. It means his weight is just a little lower than average, but if he’s eating well, it should be fine. How often does he get a bottle?”

“Every three hours or so, sometimes four at night, but usually three,” John replied as he was often the one to feed William. They both did, but John would when he could. He found it comforting, amidst everything else. 

“And he has consistently wet diapers? Bowel movements etcetera?”

Both John and Jamie said “Yes” at the same time which made Dr. Applegate smile. 

“If you want to move your son over to big chair here. I’ll check his height then his vitals.”

Again, Jamie did as he was told and it made John wonder if Jamie was a little used to being ordered around in situations like this with his wife being a healer. And one from the future, much like Dr. Applegate, though not quite as far into the future.

The doctor unwrapped Willie from his little bundle and he squirmed in his soft, onesie. She stretched him out, drew a mark at top and bottom of him, then measured between those marks. She asked Jamie to take Willie out of his diaper, leaving him only in his diaper. Dr. Applegate breathed on the base of this metal contraption she had hanging around her neck before popping the two sides of it in her ear and laying a circle she’d been warming with her breath on Willie’s chest. She listened for a moment, then said.

“Your son’s got a good, strong heart beat.”

Dr. Applegate checked a few other things, looking into his eyes and his ears. “He’s looking very good. Seems you guys have yourself a solid, sturdy son.”

“Thank you,” Jamie said.

“I don’t have any information on whether or not the baby received his Hep-B vaccination at the hospital, do you happen to know?”

Zoe had mentioned vaccinations. Needles able to prevent illness. She didn’t know if Zoe had mentioned them to Jamie or not.

Jamie shook his head. “Willie wasn’t born in a hospital. His mother had him at home.”

“Okay, do you know if he received it at home?”

“He wouldna have. No.”

John was surprised they didn’t face more questions, but maybe Zoe had been right. If they were believed to be married in this world, people may feel uncomfortable asking questions about the baby’s origins, knowing that it would bring attention to the fact the child had a true parent that was not at least one of the present parties. 

Dr. Applegate smiled. “Then, I’ll have the nurse come in and do that now.” 

The doctor left and not long after, a man—the nurse, he could only surmise though it seemed an odd title for a man in this profession—with ink-black hair and a pair of thick-rimmed round black glasses perched on his nose, carrying a metal tray of packets and instruments. 

“Hi, I’m Jeff,” he said. “I heard this is our little guy’s first shot.”

John nodded realizing suddenly that he had no shots at all, of course. Whatever this Hep-B was, he would have no protection against it. 

“As a matter of fact,” John said.

“I’ll do it as quick and painlessly as possible, I promise.” 

As the nurse went about working the instruments on his tray, he said, “My boyfriend and I have been talking about having kids some day.” He pressed a long needle through the top of a bottle and pulled liquid up inside a small capsule. “We’ve been going back and forth trying to decide what the kids would call us. We’ll probably end up drawing straws to decide who gets to be dad. It might get confusing if we both were. What did you two decide on?”

The nurse’s words were met with a silence that both of them knew they’d need to fill quickly to avoid suspicion. 

“Da,” Jamie said, visibly overcome by it. It warmed John inside. “I’m his Da.” He looked to John. 

“Papa,” John said, almost shocked by how easily it came as he looked down at little William. He hoped Jamie wouldn’t mind. 

“Alright,” Jeff said, bringing the needle towards William. “Now here comes the worst part. It’ll be over in the a jif though.”

John hadn’t the faintest idea what a ‘jif’ was but he hated the sight of that gleaming needle coming closer to William and he hoped the whole ordeal was over quickly. 

. . .

Later that day, after the appointment, after wee William had recovered from his the pain of that needle, Grey was sat on the edge of Jamie’s bed, feeding Willie from one of the bottles. Meanwhile, Jamie was sat on the floor, folding Willie’s freshly washed clothes and slipping them into the chest of drawers. As he completed the work, he tried not to think of what had happened at the doctor’s and the words that kept bouncing around in his mind. _John Fraser. Papa._

They were talking idly of nothing when their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. Jamie was unable to make out the words, but the voices were harsh and not particularly friendly.

Grey carried Willie to the window where he peaked out through the curtain.

“Who’s there?” Jamie asked. 

“Not sure. Zoe doesn’t look pleased to see them though.”

Jamie stood and joined Grey by the window to get his own look. Three people stood before Zoe. Two men and one woman. They were all long and lean, making him think more of fence posts than human beings. And they each wore a different color—black, a deep maroon and an emerald green. But those colors were the only that they wore, head to toe. Their faces were gaunt, severe. Such a contrast to Zoe’s shorter, softer frame, her fair hair and patterned clothes. Jamie wasn’t one to be unsettled and yet he found himself wary.

They talked for only a few more moments, then Zoe shook her head and walked back inside. He exchanged a look with Grey, then they both walked out to meet Zoe in the living room.

Zoe was grumbling curses under her breath and she kicked the door with her blue boot.

Grey spoke first. “Zoe, who were those people? Are you alright?”

Jamie could hear the concern in Grey’s voice and, as much as he and Zoe could ‘go ten rounds’ as she would say, he did care for her deeply. He appreciated that even in a short time, Grey seemed to feel protective of her as well.

She let out a breath and shook her head. “I’m… yes, I’m just fine. They were…representatives from the Witches Council.”

Grey’s eyebrows jumped half way up his forehead. “The Witches Council?”

Zoe had mentioned them to Jamie before, back in Scotland. She had seemed about as fond of them as one would seem of a tax collector. 

“They over see and regulate the use of magic, and they’re not particularly happy with me right now.” Her lips twitched into a frown.

As much as Jamie knew Zoe didn’t like the Witches Council, he also knew that they wielded a particular amount of power in their world. That she couldn’t afford to make them her enemy.

“Why not?” Jamie spoke up.

“They noticed an unusual amount of magic being used in an unauthorized manner and they tracked it here.”

Grey let out a breath, adjusting Willie in his arms. “The spell to bring us here.”

“Ye were no supposed to do that, were ye?” Jamie added.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “That’s a part of what they’re so chuffed about yes, but it’s more about you.” Her gaze landed heavily on Jamie. 

He blinked.“Me?”

“Yes, you were the person doing the unauthorized magic. I taught you that spell and you’re not a trained witch. It can be dangerous when someone does magic, but they don’t fully know how to fully control it.”

Jamie had thought the unauthorized magic had been the spell cast to bring them back here, whatever Zoe had done in the woods with that string, but he’d seen Zoe do enormous bouts of magic. She’d once turned an entire band of roaming redcoats into a bumbling, plump flock of chickens.

“Dinna fash, Fraser,” she’d said, teasing him with his own turns of phrase. “They’ll be fine by tomorrow."

“It may have been dangerous, but we’re all fine,” John added, bringing Jamie from his memories to the present.

“Trust me. They couldn’t care less if you or Jamie or,”—she frowned—, “even Willie were harmed. They’d barely be bothered if I were and I’ve known them half my life. They’re concerned about the damage it could do to the systems they use to harness and distribute magic. It’s… complicated, and you don’t need to worry about it. They’re monitoring it and me more closely than usual that’s all. And…” she hesitated, lines drawing across her brow.

“And what?” Grey prompted. 

“I’m on a probationary period where I can’t use magic.”

“For how long?” Jamie asked. 

“Six months. I’m luckier than other witches. Some really dive head first into it and use it for everything and probationary periods fuck up their whole lives. I rarely use magic.” She turned to Grey. “It’s a currency basically. Some people spend it everyday on little things, I save it up to do bigger things.”

Jamie already knew that. She’d told him after the chicken incident, when he wanted her to use her magic to draw in a nearby boar or stag.

Grey’s head tilted, his eyes darkly curious. “Like time travel?” 

“Yeah.” She laughed. “And like lend enough of my magic to a thoroughly magic-less Scotsman just in case he might need me someday.”

Before Zoe had left him for good to make due on his own in the moors of Scotland, in those years before Ardsmuir, before John, she’d taken him down to the edge of the loch and taught him those symbols he’d carved in the dirt, those words he’d used to bring her to him. She implored him that if he ever needed, truly, and he’d need to truly need her, he could say those words and draw those symbols and she would find him.

“Ye ken I do appreciate it.”

Zoe’s face softened. She looked over at Grey and to Jamie’s son in his arms. “Yeah. I ken.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta by DriveableCar <3 thanks!!

After a night of restless sleep being woken by wee William at least once an hour, Jamie was exhausted. Even with John Grey having taken over and insisting Jamie go back to bed for half the time, he had hardly slept a wink. So when he was woken by a horrible racket blaring from the kitchen it was the last straw. Jamie rushed out of his bedroom, hands shielding his ears. “What in Christ’s name is that?” he shouted over the cacophony. “Mary Mother of God.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Zoe shouted back, fussing with something attached to her arm.. “I thought my headphones were in. I’m trying to turn it off.”

The banging stopped. Jamie may have been tone deaf, but he was still certain that this sounded nothing like the music from his own time. Zoe was no ordinary woman, but honestly? ‘So put your hands down my pants and I bet you’ll feel nuts’? At seven in the morning. On a Thursday afternoon? For God’s sake.

“That was music?” Jamie’s ears were still ringing. He cast his gaze up and down, taking note of a good deal of bare skin, tight black ‘shorts’ that barely obscured her buttocks. And her breasts were only marginally hidden by a deep red garment that left her stomach and shoulders exposed. “And why are ye naked?”

Zoe glared at him. “I’m not naked, jackass. It’s a sports bra. I’m going on a run.”

“Is everything all right out here?” Grey asked, his voice coming from behind them.

Briefly, Jamie wondered how much of that so-called music the Englishman had heard and just how he’d felt about it. 

“Yes, it’s fine,” Zoe said, popping small white buds into her ear. “Jamie is just slut-shaming me.”

“What is…. slut—”

“We’ll cover it during our next class, alright?” She grabbed a bottle of water from the countertop.” For now, I’m going to go running and even if it makes me five minutes late, I’m not going to ‘accidentally’ pass that cute guy with the tattoos who walks his goldendoodle before work. Bye.” She grinned, waving, then disappeared out the side door. 

Grey looked over at him with wide eyes. “Did you understand any of that?”

He shook his head. “Nae, not even a wee bit.” 

Grey was wearing a pair of soft-looking grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt that clung to his arms. He pulled a mug down from the cabinet and poured himself some coffee. “Do you want some?” he asked.

“Aye. Thank ye.”

Grey poured another mug full of coffee for Jamie, then got the creamer out of the refrigerator. As he added some to each mug, he said, “Zoe showed me how to work the television if you wanted to watch something before she gets back and forces us to learn the finer details of modern day clothes washing.”

He nodded. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. Neither he nor Grey had had much to do outside of Willie and Zoe’s frequent odd lessons for quite some time.

Besides, Zoe had given them a list titled “Important TV Shows to Watch” at their last lesson, which included titles such as “Parks and Recreation”, “Psych”, “The Office”, “The Good Place”, “Black Sails” with several exclamation marks, “Supernatural”, “Schitt’s Creek”, “The British Baking Show”, “Santa Clarita Diet” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.

He sat down with Grey and Willie and looked up a few on Zoe’s list before deciding to choose at random using a system of numbers they came up with together on the spot.

In the end, the winner was “Schitt’s Creek”.

“Do ye think that’s pronounced like ‘shit’?” he asked

Grey shrugged. “Guess we’re about to find out.”

The episode came to an end and Grey was standing up to retrieve more coffee when the front door opened and Zoe walked in, looking pink and shining with sweat.

“Did you see him?” Grey asked her, as she shut the door behind her and walked briskly inside. 

Zoe tilted her head. “Who?”

“The man you mentioned with the… golden… doodle?”

“Oh, yeah. Got his number like a boss ass bitch.” She grinned, puffing up. “Anyway, I’m going to shower and then we have something very important to cover today, other than Jamie’s being a dick, and that’s Alexa.”

“Is this a friend of yours?” Grey asked from the kitchen, where presumably he was pouring coffee.

“Oh she’s both friend and foe to all of us. Eventually she’ll likely take over our brains but for now, she’s on our side. I haven’t used her since you got here because I thought it might freak you out, but I think you might be ready,” Zoe said. “Give me like half an hour.”

Jamie adjusted the still sleeping Willie in his arms. “Half an hour gives us time for one more, major, if ye want.”

“Sure,” Grey replied, not looking at him as he emerged into the living room. He sat down, leaning back on the sofa and kicking his legs up onto what Zoe had called an Ottoman. “Why the devil not?”

After another two episodes of Schitt’s Creek, they were almost halfway through “season 1” whatever was meant by a “season” and Jamie almost felt as if he should take down notes and start looking up some of the references the characters were making. Maybe it would teach him something about the world. Though, he found, the show itself and watching people just live their lives, no matter how eccentric and often foul-mouthed they appeared to be, was a lesson in modern living on its own. And it made Lord John laugh. There were… well, worse sounds. 

Freshly showered, Zoe came sweeping into the room in an orange dress. Grey paused the show. 

“Alexa, what day is it?” she announced

“It is Friday, May 12.” An unsettling, unearthly voice resonated from somewhere unseen.

Instinctively, Jamie crossed himself, while Grey said, “Dear God.”

Zoe laughed, looking quite pleased with herself, and continued, “Alexa, what was the name of the first man on the moon?”

“Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the moon during the lunar landing of 1969.”

“There was a man on the moon?” Grey’s eyes were wide.

This one surprised Jamie too. 1969 was after Claire’s time and it wouldn’t be something she’d have known about. The idea of man going to the moon was hard to believe, but in his life, he’d already seen so many remarkable things that he did find it in the realm of possibility. Barely, yes. But, still, in the realm.

“Can ye ask it anything?” Jamie inquired.

“Sort of.” Zoe shrugged. “Give it try, but to get her attention you have to say Alexa.”

Jamie cleared his throat and tried, “Alexa, what year was the battle of Culloden?”

“I’m sorry I don’t understand,” this(?) ‘Alexa’ replied.

“What did I do wrong?” Jamie asked.

“Nothing,” Zoe said. “Try it again. Speak slower maybe.”

Jamie tried speaking slower, but was still met with the same ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand’.

“I’ll try,” Grey jumped in, repeating the question Jamie had asked.

This time Alexa understood. “The battle of Culloden was fought between the Scottish Highlanders and the Royal British Army in the year 1746.”

Jamie frowned.

“I think it might be your accent.” Zoe laughed softly. “Oh and it’s not just a trivia box. You can ask Alexa to remind you to do things, or play music or give you a recipe or order things online. Alexa, buy Charmin toilet paper please.”

The odd voice said, “Adding Charmin toilet paper to your cart. Would you like to checkout?”

“No. Thank you, Alexa.” Zoe turned her attention back to them. “So, if you have any questions and I’m not around, Alexa’s your go to though Jamie, you may have to have John ask for you.”

It was just a strange, unsettling device that he didn’t plan on using that much anyway, but he bristled at the thought of another thing he needed John Grey’s help for.

  
  
  


According to the clock, it was three in the morning, and Jamie had yet to get to sleep. It was not from lack of trying either. If Jamie wasn’t holding a crying Willie and attempting to mellow him with bottles and diaper changes, he was tossing and turning in his bed, worried that as soon as he closed his eyes Willie would start wailing again.

Sure enough, when his eyes had just begun to grow heavy, Willie’s sharp cry sounded from the crib once more.

He dragged himself from blankets and scooped Willie into his arms. Big wet tears rolled down pink cheeks and Jamie swept them away with his thumb. He bounced the child on his hip and hushed him. “There ye go, my wee bairn. There ye go.” Willie quieted some, small eyes fluttering. He lasted for a brief moment, then the crying started up again.

Jamie grumbled under his breath in Gaelic right before he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said.

The door squeaked open, revealing John, the hallway light like a halo around his head.

“Hungry? Or soiled?” Grey asked with a small smile.

Jamie sighed. “I dinna ken, major. Cannae imagine either. I fed and changed the bairn nigh an hour ago.”

Grey made a soft noise with his mouth that was barely audible above Willie’s sobs.

“I’ll take him. You should sleep some.”

Jamie looked down at his son, then passed Willie to Grey.

“Thank ye. I’m starting to go a wee stark raving.”

“I don’t mind,” Grey replied, wiping a tear away with his thumb the same way Jamie had. 

Willie cried louder than he had when Jamie was holding him and he was met with a pang of guilt for allowing Grey to take over for him. This was his son. Wife at his side or no, he should be able to handle it.

He was about to ask for Willie back, when Grey started to hum something under his breath. He wasn’t sure if it sounded any good, as he was tone deaf, and he wasn’t even sure what Grey was humming, but whatever it was, it soothed Willie. The child was still sniffling, but he was no longer waiting. Much as he had been in his own arms. 

Grey started to turn to leave Jamie’s room when he stopped the man with a hand on his shoulder. Grey tensed under the touch as if he were afraid, but then he relaxed and turned back to face Jamie.

“I have an idea. Let me hold the bairn.”

Grey did as he was asked and Jamie’s hand settled over the top of Grey’s as he took Willie. The man’s skin was warm, calloused and he shivered at the memory of the last time their hands had touched this way. Was Grey thinking of the same thing? He hoped not.

Willie let out a cry and Jamie wondered if he’d made a mistake taking him away from Grey, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Do what ye were doing again?”

“I’m not sure...”

“Sing to Willie, while I hold him.”

Grey’s chest rose and fell as Willie sputtered and whimpered in Jamie’s arms. The major hesitated but then he started to hum again, even sing softly, and Willie settled his cries sputtering out and eyes drifting closed

“There ye go,” Jamie said. “He’s falling asleep.” Finally.

“It seems... he needs us both,” Grey said, then Willie started fussing again with Grey no longer singing.

“Aye,” Jamie whispered. “It seems he does.”

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

As it had done many times over the last month, month and a half perhaps, Jamie wasn’t entirely certain, Netflix had paused their current television show of choice to inquire, “ _ Are you still watching? _ ” It was indeed one of the most frustrating problems Jamie Fraser had encountered in his new modern life.

“Why must it always ask that?” Grey grumbled. “Jamie, where’s the remote?”

“I dinna ken. It’s somewhere. Maybe ye are sitting on it.”

Grey shifted around on the sofa, but it didn’t appear that he was exerting too much effort to find the remote control. “I’m not sitting on it. You’re sitting on it.”

“I’m no—“

“Oh my God. I’m going to kill you both,” Zoe snapped, grabbing the remote from where it had been hidden in plain sight on the coffee table. She turned the TV off. Jamie hadn’t noticed her come in, but frankly, he hadn’t noticed much beyond Willie and the television recently.

“We were watching that,” Grey protested. 

“I know. That’s all you morons have done for weeks now.” She gestured at the now dark screen. “Watch goddamn  _ Frasier _ reruns and yell at Alexa to order to fast food.”

“Is there something else we could be doing?” Jamie replied flatly. 

In his own time, Jamie had found purpose, whether it was as a laird or as one of Colum’s men or in the court of the Bonnie prince. Even at Helwater, among the horses and the stables, he found stability and purpose. Here, there was only Willie and the day in and day out of his care, which he shared with Lord John. At least, in this world, there was the distraction of Netflix and the indulgence of greasy food which would arrive at the door on command.

“Okay, that’s it. Get up.” Zoe tore the blanket off Jamie, leaving his bare legs exposed to the rush of the air conditioner. “I volunteered to help with the church Fourth of July party and you two lazy bastards are going to help me.”

“Ye go to church?” Jamie blinked.

“I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean but yes.” 

Somehow, Jamie could not imagine Zoe—the witch—attending a religious service that did not involve the sacrifice of animals or the summoning of any dark forces, despite knowing Zoe was greatly offended by the idea that magic involved religion anymore than breathing did.

Zoe bent down and picked up Willie from his bouncer. “Now, get up, put some actual pants on and come celebrate no longer being subjects of King George.” She turned to Grey with a tense smile. “No offense.”

Zoe’s church sat perched atop a green hillside, like a white feather that had drifted down and been caught at the crest. This quaint building felt more familiar to Jamie than most places in this time. It was not of their time, his own and Grey’s, but of a different one, older than the current one, but preserved somehow here. There remained signs of its presence in the 21st century, however, including Zoe’s SUV, along with several other vehicles, parked in the lot out front.

After parking the car, Zoe stepped out of the driver’s seat and Grey out of the passenger seat. Jamie followed from the back, hearing Grey open the door to remove Willie from his car seat. As Jamie made his way around the vehicle, he noticed Grey standing there, the baby resting against his chest on the soft fabric of his blue shirt. Grey’s large hand, with its sapphire ring, was laid protectively over Willie’s back.

The doors of the church swung open and a dark-haired man with a slightly receding hairline stepped into the morning light. A brown box rested in his arms. He bounded down the steps, his eyes alight with recognition.“Oh hey, Zoe! Happy Fourth!”

She smiled back in greeting. “You too, Reverend.”

The Reverend set the box down and extended his hand to Jamie. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Andy Parks, the pastor here.”

Jamie shook the man’s hand. “Jamie Fraser.”

“I thought I’d bring reinforcements,” Zoe added. “These are my friends. That’s Jamie, of course, and John, and that’s Jamie’s son, Will.”

“Oh well, thanks. We really appreciate your help,” Reverend Parks said. “We’ve got lots of big folding tables to move outside. Our children’s pastor, Kate, is watching some of the other kids, if you think your Will would like to hang out there.”

Will hadn’t had much time with other children, any really, as they spent almost all their time hiding away in Zoe’s home, unsure what to do with such an inscrutable world. This one for all its wonders was far more isolated than his own. It would be good for Willie to know there were others as small and new as he. “Aye, I think he would like that.”

“Well I’ll show you the way,” the reverend said to John, who was holding Willie. “Zoe, if you want to take Jamie downstairs, Nate and some of the others are trying to bring up the tables. It’s really good to meet you both.”

Jamie followed Zoe, allowing John to take Willie along with the Reverend. When they stepped through the church doors, Jamie smelled the faintest hint of mildew, a consequence of old construction. The scent brought back memories of Scotland when the whole world smelled like wet moss on stone. 

In the basement of the church, Zoe introduced Jamie to the crowd of people huddled around stacks of tables with their metal legs folded flat. 

A white woman with a black hoop in her nose leaned against the chest of an African man, whose arm wrapped protectively around her waist. From the rings on their fingers, Jamie assumed they had to be married. Then there was a man, probably about Grey’s age, balanced on a prosthetic leg—a term he’d learned from the television—and a teenage girl moving her hands in specific, animated motions. Her lips moved sometimes too, but she did not speak. Jamie may have seen that on television as well. Sign language, he believed it was called. It was commonly used by the deaf. She was communicating with an older woman whose features suggested she or her ancestors came from somewhere in the East Indies. There was also a fair-haired man with glasses, dragging metal chairs that screeched across the floor and humming as he did. He was wearing a t-shirt with a boldly printed  _ USA,  _ which made him realize the teenage girl’s bright red t-shirt was printed with the sentiment  _ Let freedom ring. _

Everyone’s clothes but his own matched the red, white, and blue of Zoe’s thin dress. 

Of course, he knew the Americas had won their independence from the British within just a few decades of his own time, but it felt different now to really see it, the fruition of two hundred years of that freedom printed on t-shirts, transformed into color and pattern.

Though, Jamie Fraser thought of his own tartan and knew the power of color and pattern. 

Zoe went through and quickly introduced everyone. He had almost no chance of remembering their names from that one exchange alone, but by the end of this day, he’d have it figured out. It might be pleasurable to speak with someone new. Not to speak against Zoe or his son, and there was always a strange uneasiness in his conversations with Grey, a wariness not easy to explain.

Paired up with the fair-haired man in glasses, Jamie hefted a table up the narrow stairway and outside. They set the table down on the grass and Jamie watched the other man fold down the table legs on his side so he could repeat it on his own. He was rather proud of himself for getting it on the second try. 

“Ready to go grab another, Jamie?” the man—Nate, he believed—said. “At least, doing this we’ll get our steps in for the next few days.”

_ Steps?  _ Jamie thought to ask, but then didn’t. From his experiences with Claire, the more questions you asked, the less normal you’d seem. If he remembered, he’d bring it up to Zoe later. 

“Zoe mentioned she had a friend from Scotland staying with her. I guess that must be you,” Nate said, as they descended the stairs back to the church basement.

“Aye,” he said. “I reckon my accent gave me away.”

“Well, yes.” Nate laughed. “She also said you have a son. How old is he again?”

Jamie nodded. “Four months.”

“So you probably haven’t slept through the night in a while.” 

There was one last table leaning against the wall. Nate lifted one side and Jamie got the other.

“Nae, I havena. Though I am grateful to no’ have been wi’ out help.”

“I’ve got a son who turned a year last month. I’m so grateful to be out of the two to three hour feeding cycle, especially with a daughter who refuses to stay in bed at night.”

They stepped back out in the warm July air and set the table down. 

“Daddy!” cried a little girl. She wore a sparkly skirt that folded out from her waist like a flower pedal. Her shirt had a red drink stain and fireworks on it. She pummeled into Nate’s legs and he swept her up into his arms.

She turned to look at Jamie. “Whoa! Your hair is super cool. It’s like you have fire on your head.”

“Annalee, this is Jamie,” Nate said. “And Jamie, I guess you’ve now met my troublemaking daughter.”

She stuck a small pink tongue out at her father and he kissed her on the nose, then set her down. “Can I help?” she asked.

“Aren’t you playing with the other kids?”

“I was,” Annalee groaned. “But I want to help.”

Nate looked over his shoulder. Zoe was standing under a tree surrounded by blue reusable shopping bags. “I bet Miss Zoe could use some help putting on the tablecloths.”

“Okay, Daddy.” She scampered off in her untied sneakers and barreled into Zoe, who hugged her then set her to work. 

Nate turned back to Jamie. “Chairs next, then?”

Jamie nodded, dusted his hands on his pants and then followed Nate back inside the church. 

They were rounding the corner to head back down the stairs when Jamie caught sight of John and the Reverend exiting one of the doors down the hall. The sound of chattering children echoed through the otherwise empty space before the door shut again, quieting the sound. 

The Reverend smiled as he approached them. Then he slid an arm around Nate’s waist and kissed him on the mouth. 

Jamie stood there, gaping and blinking. He’d watched quite a bit of television over the last months, spoken to Zoe and understood the world was a different place. But Andy Parks, despite being technically a heretic, was still supposed to be a man of God.

His jaw twitched, but he knew better than to say anything. Jamie did what he could not to look over at John. Jamie didn’t want to know how he felt about something like this.

An openly sodomite minister. Truly bizarre. Even for protestants. 

“How can we help with the tables?” Reverend Parks asked.

“We got all the tables up,” Nate replied. “But we could use some help with the chairs, I’m sure. Dotty and Michael have brought quite a few up but not all.”

“Sure thing.” Parks ran his hand down Nate’s back and settled it in the small dip there. A blush appeared on Nate’s face as pink as cut strawberries. 

Jamie had stopped breathing and started digging teeth into the soft flesh on the inside of his cheek. The refrain  _ dinna look at John Grey, dinna look at John Grey,  _ repeated over and over in his head. 

Eyes averted and still barely breathing, Jamie followed the other man down the staircase. They were talking to each other and occasionally to him, but he found himself only able to manage single word answers and guttural grunts.

They gathered up the “folding chairs” and headed back outside. Most of the tables had been covered now in red-and-white checks. Zoe held one side of the cloth, Annalee the other, and air billowed beneath the table covering like a ship’s sail before settling back down over the table. 

Seeing Annalee now made Jamie wonder just how she fit into the picture of Parks with his mouth on Nate’s mouth. Was she actually what they’d pretended William to be when they took him to the doctors? The adoptive child of two men who were married to each other?

Jamie glanced over his shoulder, gaze dropping down to Nate’s hand. A gold ring encircled his finger. Parks had a matching one. In his time, men didn’t wear rings to symbolize their weddings vows. Though in his time, two men couldn’t marry each other. They could. however, get themselves sent to the gallows. 

Not that Jamie thought… not that he believed hanging to be an appropriate punishment for many of the men like that. He didn’t think John deserved that fate. If he did, he wouldn’t allow the man around William. He didn’t know Nate or this Reverend Parks well enough to say for them, but there were men, he thought, like them, who did deserve the noose. Men like Jack Randall and the Duke of Sandringham.

He shuddered that thought away and turned his attention to a particularly long blade of grass near the toe of his shoe. 

Zoe swept over to him, her blue skirt swishing. She hooked her thin arm around his and tugged. “Come on, lazy bones. I can find you something else to do.”

As she pulled Jamie along with her, he heard Parks’ voice behind him, “Would you mind helping me set up the grill?

. . . 

John Grey never felt particularly comfortable in churches. He figured he believed in God, who was he to say a creator of some kind didn’t exist, but he was also a man of reason and evidence. He’d never seen anything that looked or sounded like evidence for the existence of God.

He’d also found that it was often the more religious men who found his interest in men particularly egregious. From what he’d learned from Zoe over the past few months, that had remained true all these centuries later. 

So when he’d first heard Reverend Parks refer to his husband, Grey had been shocked. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. He’d known Zoe to be particularly supportive of men like him, but in his experience the people who were supportive in private still maintained a public air of distaste in public so as to not start rumors about themselves. Even he… well, he never  _ said  _ anything cruel as he knew some men like him did to protect himself, but he never argued the point either. It’s not like he had a death wish. Usually.

Things weren’t the same here though and, when he found out about the Reverend, Grey had managed to slip in a reference that he was cut from the same cloth. So much had changed, but he realized that even now, sharing that created a camaraderie between them.

“So then,” Parks had said. “You and Jamie are—”

“No.” Grey corrected, his stomach flipping. “Jamie’s not… we’re just friends.”

“Oh. Then are you single? Or is there someone?”

Grey shook his head, thinking again of Percy, who must have thought him dead. “No. No one.” Though there was Jamie and Jamie did not want him, of course, but he… God help him. The things John felt for that man. Things he shouldn’t feel. Shouldn’t have ever felt.

He wished he hadn’t seen the look on Jamie’s face when Andy had approached Nate—kissed Nate. John wasn’t sure if it was truly a look of disgust. Distaste at least. It made him uncomfortable, that much was obvious. It was almost easier in their world before, when it was something hidden, not something they were constantly confronted with. A reminder of what John was and the moment between them that had ruined their friendship.

Grey had enjoyed the time they'd spent together over the last few months, hidden away in Zoe’s house. It had dulled him in a way, a protective shield around his thoughts and feelings, the monotony of their small life. 

He’d never not had  _ something  _ to do. Some pressure or some duty. There was William now, but that was different. And he’d say he felt something missing and he  _ had,  _ but what else was there to do but just numb himself and exist as little as possible, to think as little as possible. 

A permanent holiday, he thought coldly. John had never been one for extended holidays.

It was pleasant, in a way, to be doing this work, however mundane and manual it was. Moving tables and chairs, bringing boxes of food, decorations, and batches of fireworks, wrapped boxes of red, white, and blue. He checked on Willie occasionally, as he knew Jamie would also. He seemed happy enough, cradled in the arms of Pastor Kate or, now, on a spread picnic blanket, where he was chewing his toes, surrounded by a gaggle of other children playing and laughing or rolling sidelong down the grassy slope.

Zoe sidled up beside him and put a hand on his back. “I’m not wearing you out am, I?”

“No,” he replied. “Thanks for dragging us out though…” Grey hesitated unsure if he should bring this up. But it clearly wasn’t a hidden fact.

“What is it?”

“The pastor here, he’s… like me.”

She nodded. “Andy, oh yeah.”

“That’s different.”

Zoe laughed. “Welcome to the future.”

“I can’t say that I’m not pleased to see just how much things have changed, however, I also can’t say that Jamie feels the same.”

“Eh, I say let the old Scot stew in his own prejudices. If I know Jamie, he’ll get his shit sorted, and for now, just remember, here… he’s the outsider. _ Especially  _ here.”

John looked out across the field, past the white visage of the church and the volunteers and their children, comprising several different races across all age ranges, a young deaf girl, and a man with a prosthetic leg. Not to mention the pastor and his husband. With a box cradled in his arms, Jamie jumped down from the back of a truck bed, bouncing on the toes of his boots. 

His red hair was cropped close to his head now, much like John’s own, arranged into a common style of this time. And he looked rather dashing to say the least, well fitting denim and a blue t-shirt that was loose around his stomach, but tight around thick arms. John swallowed and tore his gaze away. 

Despite how much had changed in over two hundred years, he still didn’t think church was the place for the direction his thoughts were heading. 

Zoe must’ve noticed, damn her, because she sighed, grabbed John by the arm and said. “Come on. Help me set up the games.”

John didn’t pay attention to the time it took to set up. He followed Zoe’s instructions as closely as he could manage, only occasionally tossing in a suggestion of his own, in terms of construction. He lacked much experience in building, but he’d pitched enough tents and constructed enough shelters to have a basic understanding of how it worked. He hadn’t heard of any of these games. Ring toss, balloon pop, a station to knock down cans with small sacks of dry beans, and another that used a rudimentary irrigation system to race tiny boats. He was searching for a mislaid screw, air smelling of cooking meat, when cars began to park and line down the street, even a bus had stopped to drop off guests. 

The guests filtered from their vehicles in haphazard clusters, as music pumped from the speakers hung on the trees. Of course, none of the songs were familiar, but the rhythms and beats were uplifting and warm and most everyone else here seemed to know the words, which wrapped him in a comfortable sense of community. The more people arrived, the more John became struck with the notion that this was not a meeting of whatever version of high society they managed in Illinois. Many of their clothes were tattered and stained, some were unwashed and smelt much more familiar to John than the cleanly fragranced chemical scent of most modern people. The vast majority of these people huddled around the grills and the tables set up with food, though after acquiring their hamburgers and hotdogs, many of the children made use of the games he and Zoe had built.

Jamie emerged from the crowd, like a red boulder, Willie’s small, sleeping form nestled in his arms. Only a few feet away now, John could see a rent in the fabric of Jamie’s sleeve.

John pointed at the tear. “What happened?”

Jamie looked down at himself. “Shite,” he uttered. “Must’ve torn it building that damn wood platform. The reverend and I had quite the contest of wills wi’ that bloody thing.” He let out an exasperated breath, then changed the subject. “Did ye get anything to eat, Major?”

A smile flicked across John’s face and he licked it away with a quick tongue. “Oh no, not yet. I was waiting, but it seems like the queue has wound down now anyway. I’ll take Willie so you can eat first. I reckon you worked up quite the appetite.”

“Ye certain?” he asked, but didn’t wait for John’s reply as he passed Willie over to John. “My innards are growling louder than a wild cat.”

When Jamie walked away and with Willie nuzzled into John’s arm, John didn’t even stop himself from smiling. No one was there to comment on it, and plenty of people in the swirling mass around him were smiling as well.

“I brought a blanket and made us a place to sit on the grass,” Zoe said, gesturing to a patchwork quilt. “Come sit with Will while I get my food, and then you can go grab yours.”

John nodded and made his way to the quilt where he sat down and laid baby Willie on his stomach in front of him. He hadn’t had his “tummy time” yet today and, according to the books he’d read on the subject, it was important for proper development. He wanted to argue that he and Jamie had managed to develop just fine without it, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to give little William the best chance he had in life.

Willie gurgled through feeble attempts to lift his head as Jamie sat down beside him, the scent of onions and charred meat wafting up to John’s nose.

Jamie took a bite of the burger, swallowed then said, “’Tis good, major. Ye should go get some for yerself before ye waste away to nothing.”

“Given the amount of ‘fast food’ we’ve had over the last several months, I find that highly unlikely.” John had found himself a tad wider around the middle than he’d probably ever been his life, given the abundance of food here coupled with the lack of exercise.

Still, John stood from the quilt to gather his own plate of food. When he returned to the quilt, Zoe and Jamie were engaged in clipped conversation about  _ something  _ that they both stopped discussing immediately upon John’s arrival. It made him feel uneasy, but he wasn’t going to inquire if they had some secret between them. They’d known each other long before John had known either of them, discounting that disastrous time before Prestonpans. 

Shoes clipped on the wood of the platform Jamie had put together, which drew John’s attention to it. The reverend stood upon it, pivoting around so his mouth was mere inches from the microphone cradled at the apex of a narrow black stand.

A curdling screech flooded the speakers as the music turned off. 

“Oh sorry. That better stop or I’ll scare everyone off…” the screeching subsided, and Reverend Parks breathed an obvious breath of relief. “Much better. I hope everyone is enjoying the food and drinks. Please feel free to go back for seconds, there’s more than enough for everyone. And speaking of more than enough for everyone, as much as I am enjoying the relaxing festivities, I  _ am  _ a preacher and thus incapable of not performing a sermon, however small, when the moment presents itself.” A few quiet laughs floated out from the crowd. “That’s the promise of America, isn’t it? More than enough for everyone. Or at least, I would argue that if it isn’t, it should be. On a day like today, with all of us gathered here in celebration, I find it hard not to think of another gathering more than two hundred years ago where men pledged their life, their liberty and their sacred honor in pursuit of the mere hope of a freer world. Daily, we fall short of this vision, and of a vision far larger and far greater than even the vision of our founding fathers and mothers. It is not only all men who were created equal, but everyone, regardless of sex, regardless of race or sexual orientation, or any of the other boxes we seek to fit each other into. Today, we may celebrate how far we have come as a nation, and as a world, to fulfilling our promise to equality, to liberty. But we should also grieve for still how far we have to go and this day should be a day to recharge ourselves with the joy of fellowship for the long but necessary journey towards that vision which lies ahead of us.”

The day carried on in a blur of games, conversation, music, food, and drink. Jamie was guzzling something in a can called Big Red, and the reverend’s daughter was playing a game of peek-a-boo with Willie that ended in tiny fits of laughter for the both of them.

The setting sun turned the sky a warm pink. Sunsets were a slightly different color in this day. Zoe said it was owed in part to pollution from the chemicals pumped from the big factories that made much of modern life possible. Regardless, the sky looked beautiful, and even more so, as the color faded away leaving behind a covering of faintly spotted deep blue. 

Zoe, along with some of the other volunteers, passed out sparklers and glow-sticks. The night became filled with handheld lights and stars, flickering in the night. Should it feel wrong, he wondered, that he, a subject of the crown, would be waving sparking fire at a celebration for what technically amounted to traitors? Then, the memory of what he’d done that night for Jamie and his son… Jamie a convicted traitor, Willie a bastard… perhaps he did fit in here now—or could, he and Jamie and Willie, if they were to try—amongst the swirling lights of rebels.

John glanced over to Jamie, with Willie in his arms, looking to the distant explosion of fireworks. Jamie’s gaze moved to his, his lips curling into the smallest of smiles, and John thought that they had, and perhaps for the first time, found themselves of the same mind. 

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

_Three Months Later_

_If I ever return to my own time_ , John thought as he spit in the sink, _I’m stuffing my pockets with toothpaste._ Since coming to this time, he’d become reliant on that twice-daily mouthful of minty-fresh bubbles. He honestly had no idea how he’d ever lived without it. God, no wonder people’s teeth used to fall out all the time.

“John,” Zoe called for him from somewhere in the house. “Get out here and help me put up some spiderwebs.”

He cupped a handful of water and tossed it back in his mouth before spitting again into the sink. He turned off the faucet and stepped into the hall, where he was greeted by an unusual orange glow in the kitchen.

_Spiderwebs?_

“We have spiders again?” John asked loudly, hoping his voice would carry. They’d hired an exterminator just last month, since Zoe still did not have use of her magic.

“No, I said put _up_ spiderwebs,” she replied. 

“I thought you misspoke.” 

Zoe was standing in the kitchen by a glowing plastic pumpkin with black triangle eyes and a jagged mouth on the dining table. She wore a familiar pair of tight-fitting jeans, a strip of her knee visible from a rip, and an unfamiliar black sweater with a skeleton on it hung off one shoulder.

She grabbed a plastic bag off the countertop and tore into it, then handed it to John. “Just stretch that stuff out,” she said, miming the action she wanted him to take.

He took the bag reluctantly. “If we’re going to be putting spiderwebs up, why the bloody hell did we have to pay for an exterminator last month?”

Zoe frowned at him. “We?” she muttered. Then continued digging through an orange container on the floor. 

“Why _are_ we doing this?” John asked, stretching out the strange, dry and yet somehow sticky material.

“It’s Halloween.”

“What?”

Zoe looked up at him, brushing a strand of blonde hair out of her mouth. “All Hallow’s Eve or whatever.”

“It’s October 4th.” Perhaps they changed the date of All Hallow’s Eve in the future? And now that he’d had a chance to think about it. John did remember some reference to the holiday “Halloween" in television shows he’d watched. It had something to do with pumpkins and costumes and ghosts.

“Yes, which means I’m four days late getting started decorating. Ah, there it is.” She stood up, holding a black bowl with a green, rubbery hand in its center. Flipping it over, she flicked something on the bottom, then sat the bowl down on the table. “Reach into the bowl.”

He eyed it skeptically. “There’s nothing in it.”

“Just do it.”

With a sigh, John turned and laid the stretched out web over Zoe’s bar cart. Then, he reached into the bowl.

“Trick or treat,” the bowl said, then the rubbery hand grabbed at John’s hand.

He yelped and jumped back. “Bloody hell.”

Zoe started laughing, far too intensely for the circumstance. 

John glared at her, but there was no true malice in it. “You’re quite the jester, aren’t you?”

Jamie’s deep voice filled up the room, startling John again. “What are the two of ye up to?”

“Oh, just _Lord_ John here being a scaredy cat,” Zoe said with a grin. 

Jamie stood between the living room and kitchen. Will was in Jamie’s large, left arm, his small hands grappling at orange-and-brown flannel. Jamie was slightly unshaven and his deep-red curls had grown out just long enough since his last haircut to frame his face. He looked rugged and handsome, as always. John forced himself to look away. Though his gaze returned promptly; John could not help it.

Will squirmed in his father’s arms and put out a chubby hand toward John, opening and closing his small fist. John had spent enough time with the boy that he knew what that gesture meant, so he stepped closer to Jamie, who let John take Will into his arms. 

“Did he eat breakfast?” John asked, casually. These sorts of conversations had become so regular between them that it had come to feel perfectly natural.

“No’ yet. I was just coming in to feed him.”

“There are pumpkin Cheerios in the cereal cabinet,” Zoe said, still rifling through her box. “I thought he might like those.”

Jamie looked around the room, those thoughtful eyes narrowing. “What _is_ all this?”

“The most wonderful time of the year,” Zoe said simply. “Halloween.”

Jamie gave her a distrustful looked, then reached into the box she’d been pulling decorations from. He took out a mask with ugly black hair and big warty nose, clearly meant to be a hag or a witch.

“Ye dinna find this offensive?”

Zoe snatched the mask away from Jamie and dropped it back in the box. “No, I find it fun.”

Will had a tight grip on Grey’s sweater and was mouthing at the blue fabric. “Want to scare your daddy?” he whispered quietly to the boy, who merely gurgled in response.

“Jamie, reach into that bowl there.”

A ruddy eyebrow raised as Jamie looked over his shoulder at him. “Weel, why?” he asked at the same time he did it.

The bowl grumbled “Happy Halloween” this time as it latched onto Jamie’s hand. “Bloody Christ. Fuck,” he spat and jumped back. “ _John_. It’s fortunate yer holding my son or I’d wallop ye one.”

John laughed softly, observing Jamie, flushed, for a moment, before clearing his throat.

“Let’s get you some Cheerios,” John said to Will, who smiled and put a tiny, cool hand on his warm cheek. The touch was so sweet and innocent, the touch of a child to one of the people who loved him most.

“Are you going to the church today?” Zoe asked as she pulled out a ceramic—well, John wasn’t quite sure what it was, but BOO was printed across it in orange lettering—from the box.

“Nay,” Jamie replied. “I dinna have to work today. I do tomorrow, though.”

“Good,” Zoe said. “Then you can help me decorate and shit. I’ve got apple cider and pumpkin cupcakes for tonight. Oh, and we can watch a spooky movie. I can’t remember, is _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ before or after your time? Alexa,” she called out, “When did Washington Irving write _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?”_

 _“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ by Washington Irving was originally published in 1820.”

“Oh,” she raised her eyebrows. “So quite a bit after your time, but it’s set like in your time-ish I think. Anyway, we’ll watch the Disney one tonight. It’s tradition.”

“I dinna think it will take the three of us all day to display the contents of this box,” Jamie said.

Zoe snorted, then let out a hearty laugh as she clapped Jamie on the shoulder. “You know the shed in the back? With the brown roof?”

“Aye…?”

“It’s filled. Floor to ceiling, with boxes just like this, so… we best get started, huh?”

They, Zoe and Jamie, did get started as John fed Will Pumpkin Cheerios that he quite happily devoured. After that, he gave the baby his bottle, changed him and laid him down for his morning nap. When he returned to the kitchen, the table and floor was covered in at least fifteen orange containers. 

Zoe dragged him into the helping and they spent the next several hours emptying the boxes and finding places for plastic cauldrons—as if Zoe did not have a basement full of real ones—orange lights, “jack-o-lanterns”, vampires, bats, werewolves and yes, tons of those stringy webs stretched out between bookshelves, lamps, and across the windows. By the time they were finished, the sun had set and the house had been transformed. 

Will was stretched out on his belly on the rug, gnawing happily on a plush ghost. 

Zoe had started to cook dinner and the whole house smelled of apples and onion, of rich fall spices like nutmeg and cinnamon. They sat down for dinner, Will in his high chair, in the dim glow of pumpkins, fake-flickering candles under a sea of orange stars.

Zoe pulled out a tray of pumpkin cupcakes, then slipped off her apron. She returned to the table, giving Will a kiss on his dark curls as she sat. “They have to cool before I can put on the cream cheese frosting. We’ll eat them while we watch the movie.”

John helped clean up dinner and put the dishes in the washer. It was still pretty incredible that all he had to do was put a square of dish soap into the machine and an hour or so later everything would come out sparkling.

Will was in his playpen by the table as Zoe had forced Jamie into sprinkling cinnamon atop thick swirls of buttercream. He’d somehow almost grown accustomed to this, despite the difference to his former life. He no longer had money nor someone to serve him, no one to cook or to clean or help him dress. His work had changed too, that for the worse, he’d have to say. Jamie managed to get work as a custodian and groundskeeper at Zoe’s church, but John was staying home with Will, and attempting ‘online college’, though the technology was far more difficult to manage than the work itself. Thank God for Zoe, who couldn’t use her own magic, but was able to pay for someone else’s, and get him the credentials he needed to enroll at the school. He did feel guilty, however, to not be contributing financially, but someone did need to watch Will and no position he could get in the modern world with his skill sets would cover the cost of the daycare. All in all, it was more affordable to watch Will himself. Besides, he enjoyed spending time with the boy, holding him and telling him secrets that he could not share with anyone else.

“Alright, everyone!” Zoe called out. “Cupcake time! And show time, actually.”

The four of them gathered in the living room around the television. This was nothing unusual. They’d often watch movies together, the three of them or sometimes just two of them, John and Jamie or John and Zoe. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Jamie and Zoe just watching a movie together. Tonight, Will was still awake and cuddled into Jamie’s arms, happily suckling on his bottle.

The tray of cupcakes Zoe had made was laid out on the coffee table beside three mugs of steaming spiced cider. The air smelled delicious and there was something quite warm about the evening, as if he were wrapped in a warm blanket. There was not a single thing about this evening that John could have predicted a year ago and yet, after these past nights it felt comforting and familiar in the moving light of the television, Jamie Fraser beside him on the sofa, the child they were raising together in his arms. Not to mention the bonafide witch in the arm chair, who’d he come to call a dear friend.

After the movie, they went their separate ways to sleep, as they always did, leaving John on the sofa with his pile of blankets, this time beneath the smiling face of something he’d learned to call a “Jack-O-Lantern”.

Much later that evening, or technically, early morning, John hissed as he turned on the sofa, a sharp pain running up his side. He’d been sleeping in the living room so long he felt his body had begun to contort around the shape leaving him aching and slow in the morning and barely able to sleep at night. He also still had to drag himself up once or twice a night to feed or change Will. 

He heard footsteps behind him, but didn’t move. He’d given Will his last bottle, so if the child had woken, then it was Jamie’s turn to get up with him.

A pillow hit John in the face. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“Huh, what?” he mumbled, surprised, even though he wasn’t entirely asleep.

“Get up,” Zoe demanded.

He blinked, his eyes aching. He touched the screen of his phone. He’d gotten a cell phone last month and was still getting used to it, but he did know how to use it as a clock at least. “It’s one in the morning.”

“Yeah, and you’ve been on that couch for months. You’re going to end up disfigured if you keep squishing. yourself onto that thing.”

“I’m fine.” John groaned, pressing his face into the arm of the sofa. It was hard against his forehead.

“You’re not fine. You’ve developed a hunch. Come on.” Zoe let out a breath. “You’re going to sleep with me.”

Arms on her hips, Zoe was leaning over him in a thin white cotton shirt. It was held over her bare shoulders by two thin straps. He could see the shape of her small breasts beneath the fabric and, in the dim glow of the TV he’d left on, he could see the shadows of her nipples.

“What?” John sat up, tense. “I’m not sure that’s… proper.” He wasn’t aroused by her, but the idea of sleeping in the same bed felt vulnerable, somehow. For which one of them, he didn’t know.

Zoe just rolled her eyes and held out a hand to John. “I’m pretty sure my virtue—that I _definitely_ still have, by the way—is safe with you.”

From the way, she had said it, John was certain she did not still have her virtue. He was also sure that she did not care and in this time, it did not really matter.

Still, John was a man of his own time. But he was tired enough that he reluctantly followed Zoe to her bedroom. However, as soon as he slid into the linen sheets, felt the sink the mattress beneath her—more comfortable than any he’d ever slept in—and relaxed into the down pillow, he released all apprehension.

John didn’t notice he’d let out a purring groan of comfort until Zoe was laughing at him. 

“Better?”

“Much.” John didn’t want to lose this perfect comfort, but the arrangement was unusual enough he wanted to ensure that Zoe was certain of her decision. “Are you certain you’re comfortable with this arrangement?”

Zoe’s lips twitched up into a smile, and she threw back her side of the covers and slipped in beside him. “Stop being such a martyr, John Grey. I should’ve suggested this a while ago.”

John woke to the light streaming in through the curtains. It was the first time he’d felt rested in weeks. Zoe was still asleep beside him and that same light turned her fair hair into a halo above her freckled neck.

With a yawn, he sat up and pressed his bare feet to the carpet. A full length mirror leaned against Zoe’s wall and he could see himself in it. He looked so different than he had back home. His formerly sleek long hair was cut close to his head now, short enough to be tousled and sticking up on top. He was wearing a green t-shirt that hung loosely on his shoulders. Now that he thought about it, it was probably Jamie’s and had gotten mixed up in the wash. The thought made a smile tug at his cheeks and he quickly bit it away. 

“Morning.” Zoe said with a yawn. She stood and threw on a grey robe. “I could use some coffee.”

“For once, I may actually be rested enough that I do not need it,” John said. “Though I won’t turn down a cup.”

. . .

It was a very rare occasion that Jamie would awake before Willie did, but today was one of those days. With his son asleep in the crib by his bed, he dressed as quietly as possible in a pair of jeans and a long sleeve henley before slipping quietly into the hall to make his way to the kitchen for breakfast. Yesterday, Zoe had mentioned something about pumpkin pancakes and he was quite looking forward to them.

Zoe’s bedroom door opened. Both Zoe and Grey emerged, the two of them in a relative state of undress. Heat flushed Jamie’s cheeks and he was overcome with emotions that walked the lines between surprise and anger and disapproval. He wondered if it showed on his face. It felt like it did. 

Grey gave Jamie a curt nod, then just walked down the hallway, wearing what Jamie believed to be his own shirt.

Zoe looked at Jamie with a bright smile. “Good morning, James. I need some coffee. Didn’t get much sleep last night.” She glanced in the direction Grey had gone. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Jamie grabbed Zoe’s forearm. “Ye? The two of ye?” It couldn’t be possible, could it? But he had seen what he’d seen and Zoe had said… had they shared physical intimacies with each other? Could they have? He thought of the men at Ardsmuir who’d slept with other prisoners out of loneliness and desperation. Perhaps that was John, sleeping with a woman out of desperation, loneliness, and carnal need. Jamie did know the feeling well.

Zoe rolled her eyes, pulling her arm out of his grasp. “No, dumbass. But I thought I’d fuck with you since you were giving us that super annoying Judgey McJudgerson face.”

Grey’s proclivities were not something he liked thinking about, let alone speaking about. But he’d noticed Zoe and Grey growing close over the last several months. After last night, whatever happened, maybe _too_ close. Jamie cared for Zoe and she needed to know the truth. Desperation or not on Grey’s part, it was not fair to Zoe if she were to develop feelings for Grey that he could not or would not return. 

“Listen, Zoe,” Jamie said gently. “If you’re getting any ideas about John Grey, ye shouldna.”

Zoe put a hand on her hip. “But he’s like a _super_ hottie.”

“Be that as it may,” Jamie pressed his lips together. “he’s…his interests dinna lie with the fairer sex.”

“ _No_.” Zoe gasped, clutching a hand to her chest.

Jamie frowned. It was obvious she was making fun of him, and he didn’t fully understand why. “Ye ken? Since when?”

“Since the day he got here, dummy.” 

“Then, why’s he sleeping in yer bed?” 

“Because you’re an ass who’s left him sleeping on the sofa for months.” Zoe shrugged. “Besides, there’s plenty of room in my bed and, like you said, it’s not like he’s going to jump my bones or anything.”

Jamie made a low noise in his throat. Zoe just rolled her eyes and left him standing in the hall, thinking.

If Zoe knew that Grey was—gay, he’d learned the term for it in this time—then how much else did she know? Did she know that John Grey had feelings for him? Did it matter?

He decided it didn’t. It couldn’t. He wouldn’t let it because this was the life Jamie had now, and it was sight better than Helwater. He had good food, good distraction, the company of friends. And yes, he’d come to consider John Grey a friend, even if his proclivities still made him uncomfortable. He trusted the man with his son, which he felt showed a great deal of trust. He could never find a way to express as much to John, but he hoped it showed. 

Tension slightly lessened from the shock, Jamie strode down the hall into the kitchen, with every intention of remaining in a more pleasant state. Then, he’d seen John, still in his boxers, he now noticed, wearing Jamie’s loose green t-shirt, cheeks pink and hair mussed, leaning against the counter drinking coffee. 

Jamie’s prick twitched, and he felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to punch a hole in Zoe’s hall or smack the coffee mug out of John’s hand. Instead, he just stood there, frozen and yet seething. At who or what he didn’t know. 

“Put some breeches on, Grey. For God’s sake, what kind of man walks around in front of an unmarried woman like that.”

“Shit,” Zoe snapped. “I forgot to shield my virgin eyes.”

He made another one of those Scottish noises—that’s what Claire had always called them—and said tersely, “I have to go to work.”

“Oh, come on, dude. Fucking chill. Have some coffee,” Zoe said, shaking her head

The tightness in Jamie’s throat squeezed even tighter, cutting off his air. “If I dinna leave now I’ll miss the bus,” he grumbled, grabbed his house keys from the kitchen counter, shoved them into the pocket of his jeans, and rushed for the door. 

Jamie spent his day at the church on edge. Pruning the bushes, scrubbing the floors, repairing the railings with an unexpected amount of frustration. He nearly snapped a plank in half with his bare hands. It just wasn’t done… proper women in bed with men, even men like John, then dragging themselves out of bed, both half-naked… he bristled again. Just a reminder of how, no matter how much he tried, he just didn’t belong here, not the way Zoe did, not the way Grey was beginning to, it seemed. Sure, he was beginning to learn the rules, but understand them? No… no he didn’t understand a goddamn thing.

He was picking up the wastebaskets when he got to Reverend Parks and tensed at the thought of going inside. He could tell the man was there and thought he was grateful for the job… quite grateful for it, actually. The conversations he always had with Parks were stilted, professional, but not friendly. He had no earthly idea what to do with a protestant preacher, let alone a sodomite protestant preacher. 

Reverend Parks was standing behind his chair near the window, sipping from a styrofoam cup, a notebook and Bible laid out in front of him on the desk. Jamie pushed the rolling garbage can into the room and Parks attempted to exchange niceties with Jamie, but all he could manage were a few low grumbled words.

He knew it was far from the first time their exchanges had been awkward, but he also knew this was the most awkward it had been, the least professional. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you... Do you have a problem with me, Jamie?” the Reverend asked, warmly, an obvious contrast to his own treatment of the man.

Jamie could say nothing. He _should,_ maybe. Could lie, say that no he didn’t have a problem with Reverend Parks, go back to his work and be done with it. But Will had been keeping him up all week. And then there had been that scene in the hall and then in the kitchen… he was far too tired for lies and deference. 

“Aye, if I am being honest, I ken I do.”

“If you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”

“Well, I’m no' sure it’s any of my concern, seeing as ye are the Reverend and I merely clean the church.” He cleared his throat and looked down. “Ye ken I need the work.”

“I’m not going to fire you for not liking me. So spill.”

“Ye’re saying I can speak freely?”

“Yes, Jamie.” Parks let out a soft laugh. The man had an easy humor, but it was never naive.

Jamie sat down in one of the chairs facing the Reverend’s desk, stiffened his back, chin up, holding his body like he was prepared for someone to swing at him. “I dinna understand how ye can claim to be a man of God while giving into lust and perversion.”

“It’s ten in the morning, Jamie.” The young Reverend sat down across from Jamie. “Isn’t it too early for this?”

Nervousness swooped through Jamie’s insides. He really did need his position here and he’d taken Reverend Parks at his word that he could speak his mind without retribution. “Ye said I could speak freely.”

“I’m already regretting it, but yes, I did.” Parks seemed to direct this at himself, but then re-addressed Jamie. “First of all, I would not characterize the love I have for my husband as lust or perversion.”

There had not been a time in his life where it had been presented to him as anything but, save the time Grey had mentioned his courtship, if you could call it that, with a soldier friend.

“God made Adam,” Jamie said. “And then, well, he made Eve to be his perfect match. It’s God’s design.”

“That _is_ the story, yes.”

Well, Jamie could certainly say that was not the reaction he had expected. “And ye have nothing to say about it?”

The Reverend took a sip of coffee. “I’m not Adam.”

Jamie wasn’t entirely sure how to counter. How did you argue with someone who wasn’t defending themselves? He’d try to engage in a different direction. “And what about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“I’ll build an ark. It worked for Noah.”

Jamie frowned, each attempt to engage in conflict was thwarted and it only frustrated Jamie more. “Reverend,” he said despondently. 

Parks smiled, leaning forward. “I won’t defend my marriage to you or to anyone else. What I have with Nathan is not up for debate. Not with you, or my parents, or his parents, or the congregation, or anyone else.” His voice was soft, but stern. It made Jamie think of something Claire had said once. _Speak softly and carry a big stick._

Jamie looked the man in the eyes. “And what about with God?” he asked, the question sincere.

“It’s not up for debate with _Him_ either,” Parks said simply, then stood from his desk chair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be going. I’ve heard rumor of Krispy Kremes in the fellowship hall.”

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some discussion of hiv/aids in this chapter.

The Cracker Barrel wasn’t very much like the Beefsteak Gentleman’s Club in London, and yet this establishment was the closest John Grey had personally experienced to it in this new world and in this new time. The feeling of it at least was familiar, despite less alcohol and more women, than the Beefsteak.

Though John wasn’t religious himself and rarely attended church with Zoe, every Sunday after service, he’d pack up William’s diaper bag and wait for Zoe to come pick the three of them up. And, despite working at the church, Jamie didn’t attend service there either. As far as John could gather, Jamie would take the pay, but he remained far too committed a papist to spend his Sunday mornings with the protestants.

However, everyone else they ate lunch with at the Cracker Barrel attended Zoe’s church, including, of course, Reverend Parks, his husband, Nathan and their adoptive daughter Annalee. Their marriage—as legal and binding as any marriage between a man and a woman—was a concept that excited John naturally and intrigued him too, but he still had trouble believing it. He’d been exposed to it for a long time now, but the years he’d spent in the 18th century, unable to even fathom such a thing, had, of course, left an indelible mark upon him. 

The other so-called ‘Cracker Barrel regulars’ were the same that had been present at the Fourth of July picnic, when John had first been introduced to a distinctly different sort of religious institution. Never in the months since have any of them ever pestered John or Jamie about attending the church. They seemed happy enough to enjoy their company on Sundays at the Cracker Barrel and, occasionally, enlist John and Jamie’s help when needed, though that was mostly Zoe’s doing. The project at hand today was the church’s yearly drive to provide families with the traditional foods for the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Including, apparently, roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin and pecan pies.

John had only a functional idea of what Thanksgiving was, though he knew eventually Zoe would explain it to him or possibly just demonstrate it on the day. As with Halloween, he hadn’t quite expected to dress Will up as a pea pod and traipse around the neighborhood with the Parks’ and their ‘unicorn ninja’ daughter begging people for candy Will didn’t have the teeth to eat, but looking back, John knew it was a memory he’d keep fondly. If he somehow— impossibly, given the illegal dramatics of his departure—landed back in time, and in his old life one day, he imagined Thanksgiving would have its own memories in store. Starting with Zoe having enlisted both John and Jamie into helping the church—an outcome they had both grown accustomed to over the last several months.

Honestly, John didn’t mind. Helping out Zoe and her church was at least something to occupy him beyond his tinkering away at online classes or changing diapers. John liked a project, certainly one with altruistic ends. He liked helping the community. He even liked the simplicity of their weekly trips to the Cracker Barrel. The bustling sound of the other tables around him, the persistent clomp of the servers’ shoes on the hardwood and the familiar scents wafting from the kitchens into the dining area. He liked the little wooden triangle game. He liked how Jamie never left more than one peg, and the way all the others seemed so genuinely impressed, especially the reverend’s daughter. And, well, William loved the applesauce.

And today, John Grey found himself enjoying this place for an altogether new reason. One that left him buzzing, comparable to that excited rush one encountered while carefully skimming a sharp blade. John wouldn’t admit this aloud to anyone. Not even Zoe, despite her awareness and acceptance of his proclivities. It still wasn’t something he felt comfortable discussing. That damn indelible mark again. Besides, John didn’t have the words nor a name for the look he’d been given by the server—Matthew, according to his name tag. A look that had fallen upon John more than once since they’d come here this morning, but he understood the meaning. It was a look with a veiled heat and intention unlike anything he’d felt since Percy. Of course, John had no intention whatsoever of acting on that look beyond _perhaps_ subtly returning it. Though he would definitely not admit to having done that either.

Still, it felt nice to be looked at like that. By someone who, in another time or place, he would’ve likely pursued.

“Zoe and I compiled a list of names of people we know of in the community who can’t afford Thanksgiving dinner. We’ll send everyone out in teams the Wednesday before to drop off the meal kits. I’ve emailed the names and addresses to everyone along with your distribution buddy.”

John pulled his phone out of his pocket. He was still occasionally quite overwhelmed with the concept of it. The way he could just carry around a compendium of human knowledge and artistic creation in his trousers. But just as often, he didn’t think much about it. Just let it, somehow, read the lines of his face and open. He checked his e-mail to see that Jamie was paired to deliver with Zoe and that he was paired with the reverend’s husband.

Of course, he and Jamie couldn’t be paired together as neither of them could drive. He knew this and, yet, there was still a silly pang of wishing. He and Jamie spent plenty of time together and their relationship had grown far more comfortable than it had ever been back home, but John rarely grew tired of the Scot’s company. Jamie’s own comfort with John still felt precarious, though it had also improved.

The attractive server approached the table again balancing steaming plates on a tray on his spread open hand. As he laid the plates in front of everyone at their table, his eyes landed on John’s far more than was necessary. Not that John had any reason to complain. On the contrary, he reveled in the excitement that shivered inside him. It had been so long since he’d been looked at in that way. At least it had been a long time since he’d noticed someone looking at him that way, since he’d felt free enough to enjoy the attention.

Matthew brought John’s food last, leaning over his shoulder to place the food in front of him. The smell of the man—woodsy and spiced—made John momentarily dizzy. He swallowed hard. Matthew brushed against John’s shoulder, sending a primal twinge of desire through him. This was not the time nor the place to be feeling this way. Not with a reverend, Jamie and little William at the table. And yet… dear God it had been so long. He shifted in the wooden chair, hoping it was not obvious how affected he was by the attentions.

“Alright, folks,” Matthew said, in a low, honeyed voice. He laid his hand on John’s shoulder. A friendly and not uncommon midwestern gesture, but it still caused him to stop breathing. “Does everything look alright?”

Zoe looked up from her massive stack of blueberry pancakes. “Can I have some more butter?”

“Stop chewing on your thumb, laddie,” Jamie whispered to his son smoothing back his wispy dark hair. He looked over the high chair to John. Willie had been sitting between them.. “Did ye bring his binkie?”

“Hm, yes,” John replied, blinking, as he tried to recall just what he’d packed this morning while Jamie had been in the shower. “Um, it’s in the front of his diaper bag.”

At those words, the waiter’s hand slipped from John’s shoulder and the man cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, be right back with your butter, miss,” he said to Zoe, then turned on his heel and left.

For the rest of their meal, John didn’t see much of this Matthew, and his attention returned to his food, to the others at the table, and to helping Will eat his applesauce without getting the majority of it on his round cheeks. Once they all finished eating, they headed to the cashier to pay. Zoe added a few pecan rolls and some Cheerwine to their bill, and everything was like every other Sunday had been for weeks except John could still feel the pressure of that stranger’s hand. The pressure and the intention.

The drive home was quiet, besides the soft instrumental Will liked playing from the car radio. After parking the driveway, John scooped the sleepy-eyed yawning baby into his arm. He supported his soft head his hand as Will snuggled into his neck.

“I’ll put him down for his nap,” John whispered to Jamie.

A smile twitched across Jamie’s lips and he nodded. “Aye. Thank ye, John. I have some laundry to do before work tomorrow.”

It was no inconvenience at all for John to the one to lay Will down for his nap. He normally took charge of the afternoon nap anyway, now that Will was no longer always requiring the presence of both of them to sleep. John missed that time more than he’d like to admit. The comfort of those quiet moments, close together, Jamie holding Will and John singing quietly to him. John held Will close now too, humming, as he carried the boy to Jamie’s room. He sat down in the chair between Jamie’s bed, the crib and the window and began to rock him. Not long after, Jamie entered the room, bringing John the bottle of formula, then he took his laundry basket and left John and Will alone.

John rocked gently, cradling Will tight, and let the rhythm of breathing and the rock of the chair drift him into a comfort, afternoon nap. Only a few minutes later, John startled awake, from the sound of the heater turning on. With a yawn of his own, John stood and gently laid Will in the crib. He tucked him into a cozy swaddle, then smiled down at those perfect, rosy cheeks, that precious button of a nose.

With a sigh, John turned away, clicked on the baby monitor and left the room. He across the hall to the bedroom he shared with Zoe and grabbed his laptop off the nightstand, unplugging it from his charger. Will’s nap would be a good time for him to catch up on the work he had due for his Early US History class. _Early,_ he laughed to himself, _was quite relative._

He planned to sit down at the kitchen table to get some work done, but when he arrived there, Zoe immediately shocked him with the words.“We need to talk about safe sex.”

A flush of heat poured over his body like a warm shower. “Excuse me.”

She was sitting with her hands folded on the table, a plastic grocery and stack of papers laid out in front of her. “I just noticed today that, um, the waiter at the Cracker Barrel. It got me to thinking that you may be looking to get intimate with someone, especially now in this time, when you’re free to do that. I should probably explain some things to you. I’ve been planning to do this for a while, but after today, it felt like time.”

So much for no one noticing the server’s reaction to him today.

Zoe cleared her throat and continued, “Sex is a little more complicated now than it was in your time.”

John huffed, tipping up his nose. “Even so, I’m quite sure I’ll be able to figure it out without a woman’s help.”

“I don’t mean that, weirdo.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about _safety_ as in the prevention of sexually transmitted disease.”

“You’re worried about me getting poxxed.” Without thinking, and feeling distinctly lightheaded, John sat down at the kitchen table with Zoe.

“No... that’s, yes. I mean essentially. But it’s not really syphilis or chlamydia or anything you would have seen that I’m worried about. Those can be cured. I’m talking about a disease called HIV/Aids, which can be treated but it’s a lifelong, big deal.”

It was comforting to know that in the remaining years they’d found a way to cure the diseases that John saw wither men and women away to nothing in Bedlam—but apparently, something new and more nefarious had arrived in their place.

“Okay,” he asked, seriously, though he wasn’t exactly planning on having sex any time soon “How do I tell if someone has this disease?”

“You won’t be able to. You can ask, but it’s possible for someone to have it without knowing or, you know, they could lie. You just need to make sure you never have sex with someone without a condom and definitely never let someone have sex with you without a condom.” Zoe reached into the bag and pulled out a shiny black box. She pushed it toward him.

He picked up the box and examined it. “This is a condom?” Lord John had seen condoms before, in the 18th century, though he’d never had occasion to use them.

“It’s a _box_ of condoms,” Zoe replied. “There’s um, little packets in there, you tear it open and just like um slide it on. It’s pretty self explanatory but you may want to try it before you go banging anyone. It might look strange if a man your age had no idea how to put one on.”

He hesitantly took the box with him and stood, wanting out of his unsettling conversation as quickly as possible. “Thank you, I guess.”

“Yeah, um, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Also, you should get tested at a clinic, every once in a while, if you’re sexually active. You can go on PrEP too. It’ll tell you about that in one of these pamphlets.” She held out a stack of brightly-printed paper. “Here.”

John took them stiffly, unsure what else to do.

“What’s going on” Jamie’s voice made John jump.“What’s all this?” He gestured to everything in John’s hand and on the kitchen table.

Zoe smiled. “Perfect timing, Jamie. I’m glad you’re here.”

John was distinctly not glad that Jamie was here. Not when his hands were full with a box of condoms and pamphlets that said things like _The Joy of Safe Gay Sex_ , and had two men kissing on the front. His face flushed hot.

Zoe pointed her finger at Jamie. “It’s your turn, Buckaroo. Sit your ass down.”

With a furrowed brow, Jamie looked to John. “What’s this about?” he asked under his breath.

John’s face grew even hotter as he clutched what Zoe had given him tighter to his chest. “I… hmph.” He frowned, having absolutely no idea what to say.

“Sit,” Zoe commanded again, pulling out another box of condoms from God knows where and pounding it down on the table. “I’m not helping you idiots raise any more babies.”

Later that evening, John was sitting alone in his room. He didn’t have many nights where he was alone, but Zoe was called out for an emergency at work, and Jamie had gone to bed early with Will because he had to be at the church tomorrow before dawn. He was sitting in bed in his favorite pair of boxers and a sweatshirt he’d received from the local college he was attending.

He took a sip from a beer bottle, then sat it back down besides the table lamp. He flipped the page in his biology book and yawned. John popped the cap off his highlighter with his teeth, then highlighted the line, “Often their most distinguishing feature is their reproductive organs, commonly called flowers.”

With a snort, John looked down between his own legs to the bulge in the plaid cotton. “A veritable rose, aren’t you?”

He took another sip of beer, then returned his attention to the text book. Of all his classes, biology was the most difficult. Between DNA, evolution and carbon half-lives, there was an excessive amount of catching up to do. Still, at this point, his eyes were glazing over. There was only so much information one could absorb about gametes and zygotes and nectar glands at ten in the evening.

Giving up, John closed the book, capped his highlighter and sat them on the night stand. He accidentally knocked off the box Zoe had given him earlier. He leaned down to pick it up off the ground. The thought of its purpose made his throat tight… his boxers too. He stared at the box for a moment. Zoe _had_ told him to practice…

John tugged his boxers down around his thighs, almost surprised to see that he was already half-hard. He tore into the box, then gently tore into one of the black packet. There was a slick, flat disk inside and he slipped it out. He started to slide the thing onto his cock. It felt wrong, so he tried flipping it over, and that worked better. It slid on easily enough. It was lubricated and lightly ribbed.

He wrapped his hand around himself, drawing in a sharp breath. He experimented with a slow stroke and shivered at the feeling of it. It was different, but not nearly as strange as the condoms he’d seen in his own time.

The sound, however, took some getting used to, as did the acrid, bitter stench of the thing. It reminded him of the doctor’s office. But the slickness was nice and it had been long enough since he’d had the chance to indulge in his own touch that these drawbacks were easy enough to set aside.

John just leaned back, closed his eyes and let himself feel. He tried, desperately he tried, not to think of anything, but images and feelings still came unbidden to his mind. There was Percy’s arse and Hector’s eyes and the rough cut of Stephan’s jaw, but they were distant things, like ghosts. There was the server, the smell of him, the feel of his hand, the broadness of his shoulders, his handsome face. The unveiled want.

It was enough to have John arching into his hand. Squeezing tighter. Breathing heavier.

He held onto the server as long as he could, but it slipped away, like waking up from a dream. John grasped for it. Lost it. He was hovering there in a thick, tense abyss. Falling through it, until he was caught by another image, this one as real and solid and inescapable as stone.

It was Jamie.

His face. Those eyes. That smile. The sound of his voice, his accent. The warmth of his hand. Every angle of his body.

 _Fuck,_ John thought. _Fuck._

He was gone for it. For him. Simple as that. _Always._

John finished, pleasure coursing through him like the low timbre of a well-played cello.

“Fuck.” This time the word fell from his mouth. Chest heaving, he stared down at his softening cock, wet with this own confined seed. The odd bitterness of its smell had shifted slightly, becoming saltier.

He swallowed, guilt settling in. It wasn’t the first time he’d found his pleasure thinking of Jamie Fraser, but it was the first time he’d done it since they’d become something like friends. John didn’t know if it was a betrayal or not, but somehow it felt like one.


End file.
